This morning I couldn’t get out of bed. I just couldn’t do it. It was like someone had weights on top of me. So despite my best intentions, I had to stay put and not do the workout as planned. I felt like shit when I eventually got up and instead of feeling better as the day went on, I felt worse and worse – like someone put lead weights in my bones. Though this might seem like a tale of doom and gloom, it’s actually not. I hope to bejaysus that I’m not tempting fate, but I really do feel like I’ve changed.
The “old me” would have freaked out about not getting up this morning, but I’m actually being more gentle with myself and have realised that perhaps getting up every morning to work out at the beginning might be a bit tough on the system. You see, I used to have a habit of setting the bar really high, so high that I’d fail spectacularly despite a really good initial burst. This phenomenon is more commonly known as my self-destruct button – subtle, so subtle it’s deceptively effective.
I have decided that the self-destruct button is getting deactivated, I’m putting duct tape over it with a DO NOT TOUCH sign on. I am trying to develop a healthy form of tunnel vision, where the very thought of breaking the rules is completely out of the question. I managed this sort of tunnel vision before, when I was quitting smoking. I read Alan Carr’s book and I completely bought in to his way of thinking – ie that really you’re not giving anything up, but you’re actually setting yourself free. I was so impressed by his method of giving up smoking that I bought his weight loss book, however I didn’t find it half as good. It involved a silly amount of change to the normal way of going about things in my opinion and though his theories are probably sound, I feel the world we live in doesn’t allow for the level of change required in his book.
I am however, applying the giving up smoking way of thinking to my eating habits. When I was quitting smoking, I didn’t see it as a loss, as something to be given up – I was setting myself free from the curse of nicotine addiction. Similarly, I am now looking at my life as a fat person and I see the hassle it causes me – not to mention the pain, the hurt, the self-consciousness, the guilt, the shame, the self-loathing – and that’s not even counting the physical struggles involved. Who would want to live like this?
This is the psychology I’m using on myself at the moment. When I was giving up smoking I wouldn’t have even considered touching a cigarette – in the same way now I want to become so focussed that I won’t even think about breaking any rules.
Now, I know that I won’t be perfect, that there will be wobbles and stumbles, because you don’t need cigarettes to live, but you must eat to survive. However, I strongly believe that the battles are fought and won in the mind and if I can get into the right place mentally, I stand some sort of chance of making it this time.
