Getting out of your head
kitkatpp
Posts: 2 Member
I’ve always been my biggest enemy. I start a diet or exercise program and either scale defies me when i think i’m busting my butt or my body fails me or i think it’s ok to take today off. Excuses excuses excuses. Although they are all real, they all held me back from following through. I’m trying my damnedest this time. I don’t want to give up. The voice in my head was very loud today. You want that unhealthy food from McDonalds. Maybe if i just have a sandwich. it’s late, maybe it’s ok to skip the treadmill today (i’ve committed myself to starting off with 30 minutes on the treadmill a day.) i did 15 maybe half is ok. NO no no!!! So i did it. Wasn’t easy but i did and i’m just hoping tomorrow i can do the same
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Replies
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Good to hear, its a difficult fight to have with yourself.
Since this entire forum seems to be a place to offer advice and discussion, if I may make a suggestion? The fight is much easier when you stop fighting at all Our mind has a tendency to react in accordance with our expectations. Make it a game of 'willpower', 'fighting the urges', 'fighting the voices' - the fight will never end. You might tire, and fail, or succeed, but with much greater difficulty than necessary. Willpower isn't a factor in this.
How you control what you pay attention to and your relationship to that 'voice' is much more critically important. Our mind is constantly confabulating stories to ourselves, rationalizing everything we feel, and the desires we have. Dealing with it becomes much easier when you realize its stories are 99% *kitten*, and learn to just let the voices pass, or ignore them like the chattering of a crowd, and to learn not to give them the kind of attention we're used to. Don't fight the thoughts and voices - that attention feeds them. Instead, laugh and let them pass, don't follow the chains of thought that they may attempt to lead you down, and let your attention return to something more immediate and meaningful.
Sorry if it sounded preachy, hopefully it might be useful to you.15 -
Like AA we have to take it a day at a time, and then another day and another.4
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This is a journey about Progress. Not Perfection.
You will have good days. You will have bad days. You will want to give up, far more often than you believe possible. You will bust your rump for a week straight and will stare in horror as the scale says you put on 2 pounds. Just remember the scale only tells you how much gravity is affecting you right then, at that exact moment, and is not a good indicator of your progress.
I make bad choices on nearly a daily basis, but I start each day saying "I don't need to be perfect, but I WANT to be better"
Good luck. Stay strong, keep fighting. Don't give up.16 -
@Graymanstole I loved your comment!
@kitkatpp I believe that is the issue most of us have. So take that as you are very normal. What makes you stand out though is your last line, "wasn't easy but I DID IT"! That is the part that makes all the difference. Making a choice to do it anyway, or not eat it, or just saying no.
Proud of you for that.2 -
Graymanstole wrote: »This is a journey about Progress. Not Perfection.
You will have good days. You will have bad days. You will want to give up, far more often than you believe possible. You will bust your rump for a week straight and will stare in horror as the scale says you put on 2 pounds. Just remember the scale only tells you how much gravity is affecting you right then, at that exact moment, and is not a good indicator of your progress.
I make bad choices on nearly a daily basis, but I start each day saying "I don't need to be perfect, but I WANT to be better"
Good luck. Stay strong, keep fighting. Don't give up.
Hear! Hear!
I distill it down to core values - honor, courage, commitment.
I focus on what matters - the 20% of the causes which lead to 80% of the effects. In weight management that's calories. In exercise that's discipline.
As a personal BS check - I stress that there are 168 hours in the week so if I find myself thinking "I don't have enough time" my inner monologue kicks in shouting "Bull Squeeze!!!"2 -
My schedule was disrupted this morning because my wife's doctor rescheduled an appointment. So instead of a morning walk, I was taking kids to school. Took 6 starts to get 30 straight minutes in on the elliptical.2
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Hang in everyone you can do it, there are ups and downs but that's what makes it interesting!1
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I’ve always been my biggest enemy. I start a diet or exercise program and either scale defies me when i think i’m busting my butt or my body fails me or i think it’s ok to take today off. Excuses excuses excuses. Although they are all real, they all held me back from following through. I’m trying my damnedest this time. I don’t want to give up. The voice in my head was very loud today. You want that unhealthy food from McDonalds. Maybe if i just have a sandwich. it’s late, maybe it’s ok to skip the treadmill today (i’ve committed myself to starting off with 30 minutes on the treadmill a day.) i did 15 maybe half is ok. NO no no!!! So i did it. Wasn’t easy but i did and i’m just hoping tomorrow i can do the same
Maybe the answer is make a plan to eat the McDonalds sandwich and find something you like doing more than the treadmill. Maybe the answer is the treadmill but you need a different way to fully enjoy it.
No one scores any extra health points by making it harder than it needs to be. Since a somewhat believable survey says that 80 percent of all weight loss efforts fail making it as easy as possible seems like the real goal.
Fighting with yourself is no good. The odds of you having a goal oriented outcome when the fight is over is always going to be 50/50.
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I take it day by day. If I screw up one day, oh well, tomorrow is another day. I also try to focus on feeling better. Looking thinner/better is a side benefit. Being too heavy makes it harder to walk, travel, play with my little grandson, act. Way better than the short rush you get from eating high calorie/fattening food.2
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IMO, the most important thing is if you do go off-track for one thing, don't let that open the door to going hog wild. It's the whole thing of, "if one tire goes flat, you don't go around slashing the other 3 too." If you slip up, pick yourself up and get right back on plan!3
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I know what you mean - but eventually, one day there came the point when I realized that I want to do something entirely for myself. Terribly, terribly selfish I know - but for once I come first. And my mental and physical health, my happiness, my new balanced life. And you know what? People are starting to notice and they like what they see. Maybe its rubbing off?0
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