Today, I changed My Mind...

...and tomorrow, my body will follow.

Actually, this change of mind and body has been 7 months in the making. Or perhaps longer than that. Perhaps it began in May, 2008, when I saw my good friend, at just over 50 years old, spend our entire 2 week beachfront vacation in the bedroom on the second floor, unable to walk up and down the 15 or so stairs to get downstairs and outside. Perhaps it started in the Fall of '08, when a herniated disc, caused my years of poor eating, smoking, and sitting in front of a computer working, flared up and had me bedridden and in pain for three weeks. But I know the decision to finally learn how to do "this" right occurred sometime in the past two years or so.

And now I am doing it.

Since February of this year, I have lost 43 pounds. I started at 211 - my highest weight ever, and today I weighed in at 168. At 5'7", this is not huge, but it's not where I want to be. I still have a way to go on my journey to achieve a body that shows on the outside, my new-found love for my body that I've just started to feel, on the inside.

Perhaps in a couple of weeks I will post the "before" photos that I took today. I'll post them when I have some *real* before photos, from when I was at my heaviest weight, so you can see where I am now, and how far I've come, and how far I have to go. For now, I'll tell you.

Here are some key things I've discovered during the past 7 months:

Fat People Know More than Skinny Ones About Nutrition and Fitness

1. My weight problem was not caused by a lack of nutrition and fitness knowledge. I firmly believe that the average overweight person knows more about these things than the average "average" person. Think about it. Us fat folks are constantly reading about the latest diets, watching DVDs designed to "get us in shape", browsing magazine articles, talking to doctors and nutritionists and fit folks at the gym. Average-sized people, for the most part, just eat what their body or taste buds ask for, and don't give it much thought.

Food Fantasizes Lead to Overeating - But There's a Way Out

2. I've never been an emotional eater, really. I don't eat out of boredom. But I DO love to eat. Or, at least I did, back then. These days my eating is planned more around what time I'm working out, and what macro-nutrients I'll need to prepare for and recover from the workout. Back then, due to what I believe to be a sensitivity to carbs, grain- and sugar-based carbs in particular, I was in and endless cycle of thinking about food, planning what I was going to eat and when, fantasizing about unhealthy foods, and finally eating those foods. I believe those food-obsessive thoughts are caused directly BY the foods themselves. I think this because when I stop eating them, I stop wanting them. I stop thinking about them. Eating healthier becomes easier. And when I'm eating "clean", I can clearly call to mind the groggy, drugged, hungover feeling an unhealthy meal causes for hours and sometimes days later. I don't like to feel like that. So, I don't eat like that. But back in the unhealthy days, the thoughts were stronger than the desire to feel good.

Good Foods and Bad Foods - Good Days and Bad Days
(or, "Tomorrow, Tomorrow, We'll Start the Diet Tomorrow!")

3. Over the past 7 months, and with the help of a nutritionist whom I visited three times, I discovered what may be one of the primary causes of my ongoing struggle with weight: black and white thinking about "good" and "bad" foods, which led me to write off any day on which I ate a "bad food" as a "bad day", and so since the day was "bad" anyway, I might as well eat all the things I'm going to give up tomorrow and for the duration of the diet I was trying and failing to follow. So for instance, if I gave in and had pancakes, bacon and OJ in the morning, instead of bran cereal and skim milk, then forget it! That day is "ruined" so rather than make healthier food choices for the rest of the day to make up for the indulgence at breakfast, I'd follow that breakfast with bad choices at lunch, dinner, and in between meals, with the intention of "getting back on track" tomorrow. I'm sure many of you know what happens then. Right, tomorrow never comes, because if you've categorized so many foods as "bad", neglected to come up with healthy but satisfying alternatives to your favorite "bad foods", and labeled your favorite foods completely "off limits", you're bound to indulge on more days than you refrain, and trigger a "bad day" of 2500, 3000, 3500+ calories. Whereas, if this black and white thinking did not exist, you could fairly easily salvage most indulgent days with healthier choices the rest of the day.

So part of my journey was actually working to get past this harmful thinking by intentionally eating one previously-thought-of-as-"bad" food a few times a week, and learning to budget that choice into a day that totaled a reasonable amount of calories. For instance, my household members watched in shock as, after previously eating "totally clean" for a month, I ate a 2.5 ounce chocolate truffle that I'd been craving from the gourmet food store for months. I bought it, I brought it home, I ate it for dessert after a dinner of salmon, broccoli and brown rice. The day ended up well within my target caloric range. The day was not ruined. I didn't binge on a whole box of chocolate and a pizza for a midnight snack. I budgeted the 'bad' choice into the day. And I learned, gradually but surprisingly quickly, to get over the thinking that had sabotaged me for years.

I wish I'd realized it was that simple years ago! But it's okay. I realized it, and I incorporated it into a new, healthy mind/body relationship. That is what counts.

Set An Impossible Goal

4. Those of you who've struggled with food and weight issues know that it's easy to lose weight. We've all done it before, some with considerable success, using various methods. Yet statistically, after 5 years, 95% of us put it back on. I know I did. ALWAYS. I've lost and gained the same 50 pounds at least 5 times. The same 20 pounds 10 times or more. It always comes back. The thinking and behavior has a lot to do with that - we'll talk about that in a future post, and I'm sure most of you know it already anyway. I was thinking today about how to get around that unfortunate statistic. Because even after 7 months of devoting myself to conquering this challenge once and for all, I am not yet immune to making "less healthy" choices. I'm getting better, but I'm not immune, and I need to prepare, mentally and behaviorally, for that challenge that will come when I reach my goal. And that day is fast approaching.

I'm at 168 today. Though I haven't chosen an exact scale-weight at which I'll be "finished" losing weight, and I can't really pick a body composition goal yet, because I don't know what my body even looks like at less than 24% body fat - I just don't know where I'll end up. I figure, I'll know when I get there.

But then what? When life is consumed with the process of reaching your goal, it's relatively easy to reach it. But what happens once you get there? How do you maintain that same enthusiasm to stay fit and healthy for the rest of your life?

A thought occurred to me that I think will help me do just that. Choose an impossible goal, and never stop working toward it. If you do happen to reach it, up the ante. Aim higher. So what will I do when I get to that point and look in the mirror and say "Okay, I'm HERE"? I plan to set new, loftier goals for myself, things I've never even dreamed I would accomplish. I will call them my "Eternal Goals" - Run a 5k race, that's a good one. I can't even run for five minutes, even today! So that will keep me busy for a while. After that becomes easy, up it to 10k. 26 miles. And so on. Get a black belt in Karate. Learn to swim competitively. Learn Yoga, and get certified. Help other people go through this same mind/body metamorphosis. Write a book. The list goes on. At 38 I don't know how many of them I will get to accomplish before I'm "done". But I will set these goals, and I will never stop pursing them.

That's my commitment to my body, and myself.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my story. I look forward to hearing yours, and helping each other along the way as we each plan and pursue our own Mind/Body Makeovers.