Last night I saw this commercial for the Jenny Craig weight loss system. It's Valerie Bertinelli stating that for the first year in 20 years that she will not be making a new year's resolution for weight loss, because she has hit her goal & maintained it.
The commercial kind of hit a chord with me because I feel very similarly. For the first time since I've been on my nutrition journey, I feel like I'm not 'white knuckling' it.
People who know me probably want to smack me right now. They'd probably say, "What the h*ll are you talking about? You're not fat."
I was over-fat 10 years ago & came to my smaller resting size about 6-7 years ago. To the unobserving eye, although my weight has shifted in small increments (maybe not even enough to notice), I haven't had huge fluctuations; I am at a good size for my height. I seem to have my weight under control.
Over that time though, a LOT has been happening inside my head.
- I went from knowing nothing about calories, or nutrition & eating anything I wanted
- to becoming a lacto-ovo-pesco vegetarian because I knew that I wasn't eating the right things, but I didn't really know how to make those right choices.
- to food journaling & counting calories. I severely reduced my calories to sub-healthy levels.
- to following the Body-for-Life way of eating with a cheat-day. Okay – so this program is actually very good. However, with my mindset, I went waaaay overboard with the cheat-day; I would go to bed sick from eating too much crap.
- to taking endless fat burning supplements & spending way too much money on them in hopes that this one would make me thin.
- to becoming a bodybuilder & following a VERY strict diet & loving what I saw in the mirror only to be disappointed with my social life. What I did learn here though was that I could go to a party & not have to eat & drink to have fun; AND that no one was paying attention to or cared what I was eating or drinking. Very Valuable!
- to eating whole foods, but not pre-portioning my servings.
- to eating intuitively, but backing that up with a food journal & the bodybugg just to make sure that I'm on moving enough & eating enough (not too much) to support my activity.
All of the early techniques were ways that I thought I could fool the system. But the body knows. I was trying to short cut the inevitable; eating fake food (protein bars, shakes, & other 'healthy marketed' food substitutes), or cheat days where I would take in an excess of 5000 calories. I would just have to make good choices & move more.
What it comes down to is making sensible food choices & being active. Yes, there's room for treats, in fact life is about enjoyment. What would life be without a few cookies? The difference that this year makes is that I feel like I finally have my head on straight.
I've also come to appreciate … what was that margarine commercial from the 1970's? You can't fool Mother Nature.