When I started my emotional eating experiment I mentioned that I was going to keep doing these weigh-in posts on Mondays to separate the food and exercise portion of my regime from my emotional eating experiment, however now that I’m in week two of my experiment in healing my emotional eating I’ve changed my mind about this. So, what I’m going to do is incorporate my “weigh-in” on Wednesdays along with my emotional eating experiment post.
All this means is that I’ll give you an update on Wednesdays with how I’m doing with my eating and exercise progress, instead of separating that out on Mondays. There are a couple reasons that I’ve re-thought this –
You see I’m not looking at the scale as the end-all-be-all. Well, actually I haven’t done that for years anyway, so what I mean in this case is that I’m now putting the bulk of my focus into healing my emotional eating. Sure, if I’m going to lose weight I still need to follow a healthy eating and exercise plan, but if I don’t heal the bottom line connection that I set up with food when I was a kid, it doesn’t matter if I lose 30 pounds or not – if my emotional eating is still lurking beneath a forceful attempt to change my lifestyle, then what have I really changed?
I’ve shared my views with you many times before on how weight loss needs to be a complete change in lifestyle, but lifestyle doesn’t only encompass how and what you eat and how you exercise. Those actions are important, but it’s the surface stuff – what I’m talking about is that each of us are emotional beings. I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman, you are human and you have emotions. Sure, some of us may display our emotions more often or more easily than others, but just because you don’t show the world your emotions doesn’t mean that you aren’t an emotional being.
Since us humans are wired with emotions and our lifestyle includes our emotional self, then I don’t think that we can leave out that part of our lifestyle change (nor can we leave out our spirit). See what I’m getting at? That’s why I thought that I’d put the 2 together each Wednesday for the rest of my 12-week emotional eating experiment.
Also I have shifted what my goals are. Before I let you know that my goal has been to get back to 125 lbs along with being strong and fit, however my main focus right now is to live in joy and peace as I am now. Yep, that’s my goal, because what’s really going on is the same thing I addressed in my Loving Yourself Thin series – by loving and accepting yourself right now as you are, you are better able to allow yourself to move past the self-sabotage and treat yourself the way you’d treat your own best friend.
This doesn’t mean that I am focusing on staying at the weight I’m at because I do want to create a fitter body than what I have now, but what it does mean is that I’m not waiting until that magical day when the scale reads ### and then I’ll suddenly be happy. Today, this moment is the time to experience joy and peace and I’m not pinning my happiness on circumstances.
In fact, my whole goal is to live with joy; this is my new definition of success. My definition of success is no longer hinged on whether or not I weigh a certain amount or in fact accomplish any other life goal because if I set that up then there will always be something else that I will need to achieve in order to be happy.
How will this affect my weight loss? By living in joy and having fun with my life now, there isn’t any more pressure on myself to lose weight. I’ve already accomplished my goal since I’m already living in joy now – I’m no longer waiting to weight such and such to be happy.
Well I’m already there, so what’s the big deal? What has changed? It’s the same thing as acting as if – if you were already at your goal weight, what would be different? There is no reason to wait to live, to wait to be happy, to wait until tomorrow or 3 months from now when the scale reads that magical number. Today is now, today is my life, just like today is your life – why wait until tomorrow to love your body? Why not love your body now, be happy now, and you can still allow yourself to eat better and exercise, but do it for the joy of it, because it feels good.
I will still give you my physical progress stats though, in my experiment updates on Wednesdays, because it’s obviously a measure of weight loss progress – and if you are interested in losing weight and are an emotional eater, you’ll want to know that you can lose weight by healing your emotional eating. One thing I will share with you today is that I’m back in my size 12 pants, fully zipped and buttoned. I haven’t been able to zip them up for a long time, so that’s pretty cool. 🙂
looking forward to following your journey.
it IS such a struggle as unlike, say alcohol, we can not just give food up for good.
does it all mean that the emotional eating is forever right under the surface and we (the royal) just strive daily to keep it at bay?
Im not sure.
M.
Great goals! So much more fulfilling, I think, to go for living joyfully and healthy instead of focused on getting down to a certain weight at all costs!
You’re right: why wait until we’re a certain weight before having fun and living life to the fullest. Do it now! Losing weight is a great extra bonus.
Speaking of which, congratulations on getting back into the size 12! You’re really doing a great job! 🙂
@M, no, I don’t think that the emotional eating must always be there….I’m only in week 2 of my 12-weeks but I’m learning that this is about healing the emotional eating.
Also, as far as food addiction goes…..sure, we need to eat to be healthy and fit, but that doesn’t mean that we need to eat the non-nutritious stuff that is what causes the addiction – mainly refined sugar and flour. Those substances keep the cravings alive and they aren’t even needed for health and fitness, anyway. I’ve found that when I focus on whole foods and eliminate the addictive substances that life is much better. 😉
@Susan, thanks, it’s a much better feeling and can only lead to more good flowing in from the Universe. Yeah, dropping the weight is awesome, but now it’s not a circumstance that I need in order to be happy. 🙂
Thanks for the congrats, too!