I am not unique.
I struggle with my weight like every woman in the world. Every so often, I am on a roll- hitting the gym regularly, eating correctly, and imbibing in the red wine a little less, and yet I find that my mind always brings me back to the couch, back to the fridge, and back to square one.
I was out walking the other day, on a brisk afternoon. The sun was setting and I was listening to my favorite Italian pianist, Ludovico Einaudi. Despite the peaceful surroundings there was a distinct darkness drumming in the depths of my thoughts. And I heard a voice.
It whispered, "You are not good enough." I furrowed my brow. It continued, "You are not committed enough." I glanced down at my belly. It persisted, "You are not young enough." I caught a glance of my not-so-perfect body in a street side window. And as a result, my pace slowed and the meter of my walk downshifted to a depressed schlep.
It was then that I realized, the biggest enemy to my weight loss efforts were the lies I was telling myself.
I just finished reading through a copy of Fran DiVecchio's 5 Things to Know for Successful and Lasting Weight Loss, and she helped me discover why losing weight isn't just a numbers game.
Fran DiVecchio did something that many others do: She lost a lot of weight. But then Fran did something much rarer: She’s kept it off for over a dozen years.
At just over five feet tall, Fran once weighed 220 pounds. She dieted for 12 long years, trying one new weight loss program and product after another, desperate to take off the extra pounds. But none of these gimmicks worked for very long- much like my feeble attempts at cutting out all dairy and gluten.
It was partially comforting to know that no matter what Fran did, she couldn't lose the weight. It was comforting, because that pain, that irrational cycle of self-insanity, one in which you wonder if you will ever break out of your plateau is shared with another. Fran said that she lacked the energy and the motivation to move away from her bad habits and that she felt “locked in a food prison of overeating, inactivity, and weight loss, followed by the inevitable weight gain.”
Sounds very familiar. So what changed for her? How did she lose 100 pounds? Unfortunately or counter-culturally, however you want to look at it, there is no big secret, just good old-fashioned stubbornness.
