Identity Shift
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NovusDies
Posts: 8,940 Member
One of the bigger changes that happened early in my weight loss was that I stopped trying to become a healthy person and I became a healthy person. Granted I was still quite unhealthy at the time but this was a change in mental states not physical state.
What is the difference?
In my past weight loss attempts I focused only on my weight. I wanted it off and naively I wanted it off fast. I wanted to get it done so I could go back to normal. My identity remained as it was. I was a large person who was trying to restrict myself temporarily instead of a person who was trying to shift his identity permanently and change his mindset and habits. When it all inevitably failed I gained all my weight back and usually more because I was the same person.
When I became a healthy person in my head I started acting as a healthy person would and routinely ate a healthy number of calories that chipped away at the unhealthy physical state. This made me invest more deeply in my habit changes because they supported the identity I wanted. I still changed over time but it always felt more normal.
My identity has shifted more since then. After my skin surgery when I realized I was now free to move I decided I would be 'active'. My wife and I would come back home dead tired and I would say "but this is what active people do." I wasn't active yet and I didn't have the stamina but I kept at it. In doing so I shifted from 'active' to 'relentless'. This is when I started getting up very early in the morning to exercise because I didn't want anything standing in my way. Whenever I felt like not doing something I realized that is when I needed to do it more.
Lately my identity has been refined some more and one of the non-health goals of all this work and exercise has come into focus. When I was a teen I was very outdoorsy. It seems only natural I would want to have that identity back. The exciting thing is I now know better what to do next.
My challenge to you is to work on shifting your identity. Be the person in your head now and let your body catch up. Remember though that you when you ask yourself what the identity you choose might do to temper it with kindness towards yourself and an understanding that you still need to change over time.
I am not sure how many people would benefit from adopting a mental identity of 'skinny' because it is hard to qualify and, to me, completely foreign. I think that is the mistake many of us have made in the past when we focused solely on our weight. Finding an identity that is supported in incremental stages by NSVs I think it is better. If one of my identities was to be 'outdoorsy' then each time I have added to my walking distance, starting with my first half mile, I have been achieving that reality. It also keeps me from having too narrow of a focus. I do want to lose weight and improve stamina but increasing flexibility, joint health, proper support gear, proper footwear, are also all part of the equation and when I get it right they are also NSVs. This gives me more ways to win even on days I may not be winning the food battle.
What is the difference?
In my past weight loss attempts I focused only on my weight. I wanted it off and naively I wanted it off fast. I wanted to get it done so I could go back to normal. My identity remained as it was. I was a large person who was trying to restrict myself temporarily instead of a person who was trying to shift his identity permanently and change his mindset and habits. When it all inevitably failed I gained all my weight back and usually more because I was the same person.
When I became a healthy person in my head I started acting as a healthy person would and routinely ate a healthy number of calories that chipped away at the unhealthy physical state. This made me invest more deeply in my habit changes because they supported the identity I wanted. I still changed over time but it always felt more normal.
My identity has shifted more since then. After my skin surgery when I realized I was now free to move I decided I would be 'active'. My wife and I would come back home dead tired and I would say "but this is what active people do." I wasn't active yet and I didn't have the stamina but I kept at it. In doing so I shifted from 'active' to 'relentless'. This is when I started getting up very early in the morning to exercise because I didn't want anything standing in my way. Whenever I felt like not doing something I realized that is when I needed to do it more.
Lately my identity has been refined some more and one of the non-health goals of all this work and exercise has come into focus. When I was a teen I was very outdoorsy. It seems only natural I would want to have that identity back. The exciting thing is I now know better what to do next.
My challenge to you is to work on shifting your identity. Be the person in your head now and let your body catch up. Remember though that you when you ask yourself what the identity you choose might do to temper it with kindness towards yourself and an understanding that you still need to change over time.
I am not sure how many people would benefit from adopting a mental identity of 'skinny' because it is hard to qualify and, to me, completely foreign. I think that is the mistake many of us have made in the past when we focused solely on our weight. Finding an identity that is supported in incremental stages by NSVs I think it is better. If one of my identities was to be 'outdoorsy' then each time I have added to my walking distance, starting with my first half mile, I have been achieving that reality. It also keeps me from having too narrow of a focus. I do want to lose weight and improve stamina but increasing flexibility, joint health, proper support gear, proper footwear, are also all part of the equation and when I get it right they are also NSVs. This gives me more ways to win even on days I may not be winning the food battle.
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Replies
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And here I am in about the middle of Atomic Habits. This stuff sounds familiar. Thanks for putting me onto that book.
Way back when at 285lbs I thought of one of the things I wanted to change went like this “I want to be the kind of person who works out every day.” After a bit of research I decided that 1 rest day per week was a good idea. But how to get from couch potato to fitness buff? Thinking in terms of the AH framework I think I cued and habit stacked my way to it.
I went to the basement and got the stationary bike out of the corner. Removed the stuff that was hanging on it and parked it in front of the TV. In front of the TV was where I usually ended up after work. Next day when I got home I went straight upstairs and put on my workout clothes. Notice that in an instant I had become someone with workout clothes. I went to the basement, turned on the tv and got on the bike. 8 minutes. My first workout was 8 minutes.
But the routine worked. It stuck. On my way home I would think about my workout. What was today’s target? I was trying to get to 15 minutes. I put on my workout clothes. It was a big deal. The workout wasn’t much of anything really but I had built a structure around it that was an important thing in my head.
A couple of things that helped me early on-
One day I caught myself dreading the idea of working out. Why? I was in the ramp up phase. Maybe I was up to 14-15 minutes, I don’t recall. But I caught myself doing that. I ramped back to about 10-12 minutes that day. I came to think of that as defending my habit. I had to keep exercise in that time slot. Otherwise I would replace it with couch sitting.
One day I was in the kitchen talking to my wife on the way to the basement. I was keeping the conversation going. What was going on? I was stalling. I had a weird feeling, what was it?
Don’t know but I was interrupting the routine and it felt strange and not good. I felt I had cleared some sort of hurdle.
Kudos for this- “I stopped trying to become a healthy person and I became a healthy person.”2 -
I think I've implemented this in a few ways, like in my exercise habit and my tracking habit. But there's at least one area that has been a struggle lately, and this is very possibly the key to changing it. I need to get it in my head that the person I want to be wouldn't do what I'm doing but would do _________ instead. (Now I just have to figure out exactly what that blank is.)
As usual, your advice is on point, NovusDies!1 -
And here I am in about the middle of Atomic Habits. This stuff sounds familiar. Thanks for putting me onto that book.
Way back when at 285lbs I thought of one of the things I wanted to change went like this “I want to be the kind of person who works out every day.” After a bit of research I decided that 1 rest day per week was a good idea. But how to get from couch potato to fitness buff? Thinking in terms of the AH framework I think I cued and habit stacked my way to it.
I went to the basement and got the stationary bike out of the corner. Removed the stuff that was hanging on it and parked it in front of the TV. In front of the TV was where I usually ended up after work. Next day when I got home I went straight upstairs and put on my workout clothes. Notice that in an instant I had become someone with workout clothes. I went to the basement, turned on the tv and got on the bike. 8 minutes. My first workout was 8 minutes.
But the routine worked. It stuck. On my way home I would think about my workout. What was today’s target? I was trying to get to 15 minutes. I put on my workout clothes. It was a big deal. The workout wasn’t much of anything really but I had built a structure around it that was an important thing in my head.
A couple of things that helped me early on-
One day I caught myself dreading the idea of working out. Why? I was in the ramp up phase. Maybe I was up to 14-15 minutes, I don’t recall. But I caught myself doing that. I ramped back to about 10-12 minutes that day. I came to think of that as defending my habit. I had to keep exercise in that time slot. Otherwise I would replace it with couch sitting.
One day I was in the kitchen talking to my wife on the way to the basement. I was keeping the conversation going. What was going on? I was stalling. I had a weird feeling, what was it?
Don’t know but I was interrupting the routine and it felt strange and not good. I felt I had cleared some sort of hurdle.
Kudos for this- “I stopped trying to become a healthy person and I became a healthy person.”
The framing of the idea definitely comes from AH. That book really helps you take things that you may do intuitively in some areas of your life and bring it to awareness.
As I have found with most of these types of books the reality of life can be messier than the written word. After reading the book it took me quite a long time to find a way to describe my new identity in a way that was comfortable even though it had already shifted. It was also not a clean shift. It took some vague shifts first... at least for me. Perhaps this is because I was so far removed from knowing what any of this would mean outside of health improvement. If you asked me 2 years ago if I would once again revisit my outdoorsy side I would have probably wondered what drugs you were on.
I know what you mean about the hurdles too. There were a lot of initial struggles with changing when I sleep and getting up early. Some days I zombied my way through but I knew it was the only way to keep my life balance where it needed to be and still progress. However now this is who I am and this is what I do because this is who I am. Now each time I need to take a rest day and just do very minimal exercise I feel like I am having one of those dreams where you go to work naked. I am ill-at-ease. The same thing is true if I go more than about an hour before logging my food. I get antsy over it even when I know for a fact I am doing fine on calories.1 -
bobsburgersfan wrote: »I think I've implemented this in a few ways, like in my exercise habit and my tracking habit. But there's at least one area that has been a struggle lately, and this is very possibly the key to changing it. I need to get it in my head that the person I want to be wouldn't do what I'm doing but would do _________ instead. (Now I just have to figure out exactly what that blank is.)
As usual, your advice is on point, NovusDies!
You will figure it out. It takes a lot of sculpting to reveal the identity from the stone but believing it is there and that it is what you want keeps the hammer and chisel in your hands.
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Maybe the universe is drumming out this information, IDK, but like @bobsburgersfan mentioned, lately I've been pondering this idea of being that person.
This weekend it started with me literally thinking that a traditional "weekend" breakfast was not how the new me will eat from here on out so why not have my new normal breakfast and keep the calories just where I expect them to be? It was a bit startling to put back the breakfast meat, potatoes, eggs, and other ingredients and instead reach for one piece of toast and one egg.
Hmmm. What's next?!2 -
For some reason these posts all made me so happy!...I almost got teary-eyed!... we are all working so hard to make ourselves the person we want to be!....in a million years I never imagined that after a year I would still be on this journey and still be so motivated to continue....my only regret is that I didn’t do this many years ago....3
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@conniewilkins56
Re regret- I did stuff when I was ready. For example the 28 year old me wasn’t going to use a food scale. Just wasn’t going to happen. But as I get older I run into that stuff a lot. Sometimes I think of things my dad said to me 40+ years ago and I have the lightbulb moment- “Oh, this is what he was trying to tell me.” I didn’t understand at the time. I just wasn’t ready.3 -
This is an inspiring thread. I know when I lost half of myself I finally made it to my goal weight of 245. I had surgery on my back and I let off the gas. It was not all at once but up and down for past 15 years. I know I have to make this a life change/Identity change. I know I will always need to track my food and exercise because my mind just does not have that shutoff without the checks in place. It is a lot like being an alcoholic which my father was. You can stop drinking as he did for 2 years but that one New Years Eve drink was all it took for the alcoholic to come out. A healthy person does not just stop what they are doing, that is their identity their life.4
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This is SO true!!! I've often asked myself if there was anything my parents could have done or said when I was young to help me lose weight or get excited about activity, and I mostly come up empty-handed. I think I just didn't care enough until I was in my late 30s.Re regret- I did stuff when I was ready. For example the 28 year old me wasn’t going to use a food scale. Just wasn’t going to happen. But as I get older I run into that stuff a lot. Sometimes I think of things my dad said to me 40+ years ago and I have the lightbulb moment- “Oh, this is what he was trying to tell me.” I didn’t understand at the time. I just wasn’t ready.1 -
bobsburgersfan wrote: »
This is SO true!!! I've often asked myself if there was anything my parents could have done or said when I was young to help me lose weight or get excited about activity, and I mostly come up empty-handed. I think I just didn't care enough until I was in my late 30s.Re regret- I did stuff when I was ready. For example the 28 year old me wasn’t going to use a food scale. Just wasn’t going to happen. But as I get older I run into that stuff a lot. Sometimes I think of things my dad said to me 40+ years ago and I have the lightbulb moment- “Oh, this is what he was trying to tell me.” I didn’t understand at the time. I just wasn’t ready.
If I had realized this in my 30s it would have been a life changer!...please do not wait until you are in your 60s...you have so much of your life ahead of you....realistically I might have 12 to 15 more years and I plan on being the best I can be!1 -
My parents did try when I was young but nothing works until you set your mind to it.1
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As a therapist I tend to approach being fat and eating unhealthy in terms of addiction. It doesn’t matter what others tell you or encourage you to do. Until you are ready to change FOR YOU then it won’t work. There will never be a day that an addict is no longer addicted to whatever substance they were on just as there will never be a day that we don’t think about food the desire to be healthy (or clean) has to outweigh the desire to eat (or use). More importantly we have to do it for ourselves and not for others!4
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Interesting thought about how there is a curiosity if parental actions could have helped. When my son was about 10 he was about 10 pounds over weight. Over time we came to realize he had various food allergies and he and I took the leap to be plant based together. He is now 15 and sits on the slightly underweight but muscular side. My daughter, who is now 10, is also about 10 pounds overweight. She has mentioned her stomach to us, but as a rule, I’ve never said to either of my children they needed to lose weight or that anything was amiss. Just tried to advocate health-not weight. With my daughter, I told her I was having a hard time fitting yoga into my schedule and told her I’d give her 50 cents a day if she’d find a video for us and make me do it. The plus side is she’s getting the exercise too, but only viewing it as time spent with me. Lately she has also been asking to share my lunches instead of hers. So, I do think parents can have an influence...without ever saying a word. Just as the house I grew up in was filled with chips, candy, cookies, and hiding food, the house my kids are growing up in is filled with fresh fruits and veggies and we make really tasty food out of them and enjoy it together.1
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I've been thinking about this a lot, about what future healthy me acts like, and I've been trying to tell myself "healthy me doesn't do this" in an attempt to shift some of my behaviors. But my holiday weekend was rough and I still ate way more than I should have. I did try saying that to myself but a part of me still didn't care. So I assume, as with most weight loss behaviors, that it's something that will take time to learn and to really sink in.
I still love the concept of just becoming the person I want to be now instead of waiting to become that person at some unknown point in the future. 1 -
Do normal people honestly have as much energy as I have had lately?....I have been like the energizer bunny for about three weeks now!...I love the new me more and more!...now if more pounds would go away...0
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conniewilkins56 wrote: »Do normal people honestly have as much energy as I have had lately?....I have been like the energizer bunny for about three weeks now!...I love the new me more and more!...now if more pounds would go away...
my bunny was apparently powered by cheap store brand batteries because I felt that way back in May, but all the energy is gone now
I'm blaming heat and humidity. This is why I can' leave any further south than WV! 1 -
bmeadows380 wrote: »conniewilkins56 wrote: »Do normal people honestly have as much energy as I have had lately?....I have been like the energizer bunny for about three weeks now!...I love the new me more and more!...now if more pounds would go away...
my bunny was apparently powered by cheap store brand batteries because I felt that way back in May, but all the energy is gone now I'm blaming heat and humidity. This is why I can' leave any further south than WV!
I don’t like the heat but you do get used to it a little bit....I try to stay inside during the hottest part of the day but sometimes you can’t...I really miss having our own pool...thank goodness air conditioning was invented!0 -
conniewilkins56 wrote: »Do normal people honestly have as much energy as I have had lately?....I have been like the energizer bunny for about three weeks now!...I love the new me more and more!...now if more pounds would go away...
I think so. For the most part. Before last August I could sit on the couch all weekend watching TV or surfing the internet. I don't know when it happened but now I have a hard time sitting for a cuple hours let alone all weekend.
I think that's also part of the indentity shift. I came home from work today pretty tired, my plan was to eat dinner and watch TV, then I realized I needed to cut up veggies, and cook my brussel sprouts, and while I was at it might as well cut up the pineapple too and since I went that far why not get my oatmeal ready for the week...
I may be turning into a person that sets up their week in order to maintain healthy habits.
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bobsburgersfan wrote: »I've been thinking about this a lot, about what future healthy me acts like, and I've been trying to tell myself "healthy me doesn't do this" in an attempt to shift some of my behaviors. But my holiday weekend was rough and I still ate way more than I should have. I did try saying that to myself but a part of me still didn't care. So I assume, as with most weight loss behaviors, that it's something that will take time to learn and to really sink in. I still love the concept of just becoming the person I want to be now instead of waiting to become that person at some unknown point in the future.
It may also be that you are thinking in absolutes. My holiday/vacation eating identity has gone nowhere. I have no intention of getting rid of him. I do not care if my future always involves a week or so of deficit before and/or after holidays and vacation to allow me to enjoy eating more those days. Throughout all the weight I have lost I have still eaten more on special occasions. This has always been part of my plan.
It is my everyday food and exercise identities that needed to change. I compromise with the parts of me that want to eat more and give them special occasions.2 -
conniewilkins56 wrote: »Do normal people honestly have as much energy as I have had lately?....I have been like the energizer bunny for about three weeks now!...I love the new me more and more!...now if more pounds would go away...
I have no idea what "normal" people feel like. I have no experience. I imagine some do and some don't.
I have high periods and low periods. Even when I feel lower though I cannot sit still for as long as I once did. My body also knows the schedule. This morning I had every intention of sleeping later and just hitting the elliptical more instead of my early morning routine. I woke up at 4am and tried my best to go back to sleep but I was practically vibrating because that is around the time I start exercising so my body was ready to go and sleep would be no more.1
