Makes total sense to me (and what's wrong with babbling, anyway? Do it all the time. . .)
This is almost more of a mental battle than a physical one, and anything that strengthens us increases our chances of success. Could you imagine if we had to do all of the work first before we reaped any rewards for our effort? If we had to do all the exercise, food changes, behavior changes, and then one day go from our high weight to our goal weight? I don't think I'd make it. It's the milestones, large and small along the way, that keeps me going, and I think that's true for many others as well.
Parenting has it's raise-high-the-roof-beam moments: the birth of a child, or the moment when a judge declares the adoption final; the first day of school, the first time they stay overnight with a friend, or ride their bike alone; getting a drivers licence, high school diploma, "You're going to be a grandpa/ma", and so on. It's a long journey from infancy to adulthood, and it's not really defined by the milestones, but they are often what we remember, how we define our progress, and what we note and celebrate.
Education has same kind of rites of passage--midterms and report cards and finals and thesis--and then on to graduation. We mark our progress--freshman, junior, senior, grad student, etc., and it affects how we see who we are.
Weight loss doesn't take that long, thank goodness, but it is life-changing nonetheless, for those of us who suffer from morbid--deadly--obesity. We lift the death sentence from our lives, and transform bodies from prisons to playgrounds. That's pretty life-changing. If getting to goal is Graduation Day, then getting under a century mark is an important milestone along the way.
Celebrating stepping from 4-something to 3-, from 3-something to 2-, from 2-something to 1-something is turning a corner, renewing a commitment. It's how we keep from sliding into the complacency of "Oh, I've lost some and I feel better and look better and just one won't hurt and no one will notice the five--ooops, 10--oops, 20 pounds I've gained," and all the other lies we tell ourselves when we gain and regain the weight. It's about getting going again when we're 15 or 10 or 5--or 1 and a half pounds from goal.
It's about awareness. If obesity thrives in denial, then truth and awareness are the weapons we use in the fight.
I anticipate milestones and pebbles in the path as well, because I am believing myself into this acheivement. Each change, I celebrate. Walking down the hall this morning, I noticed my arms swinging freely by my side, instead of rolling over my inner arms. So noted, and cherished.
That helps me begin to see myself as a thinner person, one who behaves in ways appropriate to that state. A writer over at Carbsmart Magazine (check it out!) said about a time when she started to regain weight: "I had been a petite little lady for three years, and eating myself out of my clothes is not something petite little ladies do--so I stopped."
If I see myself as active, attractive, and slender, I hope to behave in ways that fit that self-image. When I saw myself as hopelessly fat, it was okay to cruise the cupboards and frig looking for love, it was acceptable to make cookies "for the kids," and then eat most of them myself, it was not not weird to be full--and keep eating. Even now, only 9 weeks later, it would be weird--and scary. I don't do those things, in part because I don't see myself as someone who does those things.
I belive that being in the 100's will be a different frame of mind for me than being over 200, where I spent almost all of my forties, where I have spent most of my children's lives.
I am very, very attentive to all the changes that take place in my body and my life, because it motivates me. I record every drop in weight, because I am trying very hard to internalize the changes I have wrought.
You are indeed so close. First one through, claim the territory for the rest of us, and leave the gate wide open, because no matter how close or far, there are more of us on the way.
Last edited by kathleen24 : Sun, Mar-20-05 at 23:24.
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