How to Have Your Own Back As You Lose & Preserve

My hope is that one day she’ll live in a smart eating world where making great choices is a snap.

Pearl One

One of the most “you’ve got to be kidding me” parts about shooting for the stars is that a lot of us can’t really handle success.

You’ve never been successful before, why would you be now?

But, here’s the thing: when we’re working diligently on our stretch-goal, it’s easy to (unconsciously) feel out of sync emotionally with our long-term plan. We “accidentally” mess every thing up. I mean, decades ago, when I went Cookie Monster on my kitchen, it was my green light to overeat and later to beat myself up.

I call this dynamic “drama.”

Humans do this.

We all have a default thought that goes: I just don’t see myself at that lower weight. It would be like winning the lottery, possible but a billion to one.

This is Your Brain on Affirmations

Affirmations are powerful; I can’t stress this one enough. Instead of telling yourself, I can’t do it, it’s like winning the lottery, tell yourself the following affirmations (bonus points for putting these affirmations on sticky notes to sprinkle throughout your day).

When you lose five to ten pounds, maintain for a month or more to allow your brain time to accept your new weight.

Breathe in and tell yourself:

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

“It’s okay to be lean, it’s okay to be lean, it’s okay to be lean.”

“I feel comfortable in my body.” “I feel comfortable in my body.” “I feel comfortable in my body.”

“I can do hard things. I can do hard things. I can do hard things.

“This new weight is feeling more like ‘me’ every day.” (Repeated three times.)

“Plateauing is a great thing for my forever-loss.” (Still three times)

Talk to yourself daily about how you’re rolling the red carpet out for your new-normal.

When we’re shooting for the brass ring, we have to use everything in our arsenal. ♥

Pearl Two

One of the best food habits I’d ever developed hit the skids last year when I got braces. Crunchy food was out, soft and squishy was in; in the beginning whatever I “ate” had to go through a straw. The cavewoman inside of me was elated, because “vanilla shakes!!”

As I’ve mentioned, I stopped the vanilla shake situation before it went completely bonkers, but I’ve never reclaimed my amazing salad habit. It is totally poof, gone. (And you know what the study our of England said, , we need sixty-six days to put our new habit into our automatic thought-land! (The first sixteen days are hard, it get easier by week 3.)

If you read my book and please do —  InspiredEater.com: Fed Up! – you’ll see how I combine specific ingredients to make an incredibly nutritious, but tasty salad (btw, the book is not a cookbook, I just add a few food items that I rely on, I just add a few food items that I rely on to give my eating-day a bit more zip.

But all is changing starting now.

I’m using the kale kit from Costco that I love, adding in a bit of Feta cheese, and olives. That’s all I started with when I initially developed my wonderful salad habit. I’m so excited for my new salad-habit to become automatic. ♥

Pearl Three

In January, we’re talking stress-eating, and how we can walk it out of our daily

We can talk about emotions – boredom, anger etc. – as purely separate feelings.

Like the time Lisa’s husband told his aunt about her diagnosis when she wasn’t around. Lisa was livid.

So, in this scenario, we’d assume that we’re dealing with anger, right? She’s really mad at him.

But usually it’s a whole host of emotions that are flooding our minds  — beyond being only angry at her husband — she likely has a lot of fear of her new diagnosis. She’s sad about her life changing. And she’s confused about what happens next.

Can you see that it’s rarely one feeling that we need “to deal with”, but a soup of emotions?

And that is where the gold lies.

First there’s the emotion of the moment. He told Lisa’a story, she’s mad.

Then there’s a new layer: internally Lisa’s scared of all that’s coming next because of this new diagnosis. And she feels super sad. She’s grieving the life she thought she’d have.

And then there’s a layer of how she responds to being overwhelmed by all the emotions — anger, fear, sadness, and confusion — at once.

I’m going to write a lot more about the layers, but for today: if you find yourself reaching for the cookies, have some. I’m serious.

But within the day, write in your journal about what emotion seems the most obvious. “She’s not taking my calls.”

And last write about all of the emotions in your soup and how you engage with the emotional soup. More to come on this topic. A whole lot more. ♥

Pearl Four

When Viet Thanh Nguyen blew the world away with his first book;  The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction). I vaguely knew what the topic was about, that involved a spy from Vietnan. OMG, the man can write. And I hadn’t realized that he’d come out with a companion book in 2021.

Ocean Vuong says about The Committed: A novel: “The Committed marks, not just a sequel to his groundbreaking predecessor, but a sum accumulation of his life devoted to Vietnamese American history  and scholarship. It asks questions to central both to Vietnamese everywhere – and to our very species: how do we live in the wake of seismic loss and betrayal? And perhaps even more critically, how do we laugh?”

The author is also a professor at UCLA. Like Min Jin Lee (Pachinko), Mr. Nguyen proves that aliens live among us. Five-stars.

Pearl Five

Normalize celebrating small victories along the way.” ♥

Timothy A. Pychyl

I’m taking more clutter to the dog and cat thrift store. Other than that, I’m just reading, reading, and more reading.

♥, Wendy

P.S. Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea right to you!

You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.

I am not an expert, a doctor, a surgeon, a nurse or a nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. ♥