Hurtle the Obstacles by Asking Yourself These Strong Questions

Pearl One

Sounds so simple: just nail down your why and you’re to go! But it’s so much more complex than that. When you’re feeling good, get cozy with your journal and begin asking yourself strong question like “why do I want to lose weight for a lifetime? Why now? Why does this trek (losing weight after 50) even matter to me?”

Continue by asking, “what has been the easiest skill to adopt: eat before you eat, book-dessert, food track and so forth What has been the hardest?”

When you journal-write you’re essentially asking your prefrontal brain for information-slash-wisdom. Something is happening inside of you at this very moment that is fueling your willingness to try a new way of losing weight and preserving the loss for the long run. What’s happening inside of you?

You and I are not in kindergarten or even high school. We’re in a PhD program going for the gold even as we’re swimming against the tide (our world littered in food-porn as far as the eye can see).

What’s a time when you had a solid why and scored? Having a strong why muscle in place and tending to it daily is the very essence of what a forever weight loss is all about.

An example

A dear friend loves horses. She doesn’t have her own, but arranged a rock star deal for herself and her girls with a nearby horse barn. The three could ride for free if my friend cleaned the individual stalls once a week. She fell in love with the horses and the agreement.

All was well until her husband was offered a job in England. They’d lived in England once before and loved it. She was 100 percent onboard; her attitude was I’ll pack the house tonight and be ready to roll by morning.

But wait, what about her darling horses in North Carolina? She was very attached to them and not being with her darlings broke her heart. But she’d known this day was coming, even if it came faster than she’d expected.

Spoiler: she now lives with her husband and girls in England.  

You can see my friend’s why: she loved life in England and always knew that she’d eventually have to say goodby to the horses. She had a why that fueled her through the sad moments of leaving North Carolina, U.S. and starting a new chapter of life in the UK.

We have whys behind every single thing we do, but we just don’t look it that way. Trust me, there’s a why behind cleaning the toilets in my home, behind gassing up the car, choosing one dress over another at the boutique and so forth. Whys are behind everything we do.

This Matterhorn-trek we’re on (losing after 50) is challenging enough on its own. With your why firmly in place, meta-watch yourself hurtle the obstacles. ♥

Pearl Two

I’m hearing from a lot of you guys that you’re burning out on this idea of losing weight through establishing specific habits and mind-sets. I hear you, I really do.

If you’ve reached your preferred weight and find yourself gaining, your smart eating habits need serious strengthening. The bare bones truth: we can’t gain if our smart eating habits are in place. We’re not living the yo-yo life of the last century. We’re changing how we engage with food and consciously taking food from “good times” and soothing comfort to 95-percent fuel. ♥

Pearl Three

Sequencing is taken directly from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The purpose of sequences is to help us move from reacting to circumstances to responding. I encourage you to do a sequence a day in your journal. Powerful stuff.

Reactive Sequence

This scenario happened a few years ago to a friend. I’m writing as if I’m her.

• Situation (something concrete): My therapist is moving to another state (they didn’t have Zoom back then).
• Thought: Oh, no. This is terrible.
• Feeling: Kind of angry. I’d felt her pulling away during our last few sessions and now I understand why. Also I feel sad and a little panicked.
• Action: I stopped going to her. We didn’t even have a good-bye which was fine by me.
• Result: I found a new therapist as quickly as I could.

Responsive Sequence

• Situation (something concrete): My therapist is moving to another state (they didn’t Zoom back then).
• Chosen thought: I’ve been seeing my therapist for three years now. I wonder how it would feel to go-it alone for a few months or even years?
• Feeling: Still annoyed that she’s leaving, scared of having this important therapist out of my life. Curious about how it would feel to not have this twice a month support.
• Action: I sit down one evening when my house is empty and give the matter a lot of thought. Then I write in my journal. Rather than being reactive, I want to be responsive for the the relationship I had with my therapist, especially for my own healing.
• Result: I still didn’t want to do a full goodbye in person, but I wrote her a long letter while she was still in town about how I felt about her moving away. ♥

Pearl Four

I really love memoirs because I joke that I’m nosy, but the truth is that I want to see the details of their lives and how they rose from the ashes.

Today’s memoir — like last week’s book-dessert by Penny Marshall (which rocked) — starts off with our heroine being invited to lunch by Oprah at her Montecito, CA home. It’s a fantastic opening to a really well written memoir. It’s so amazing to me how some people are able to pull themselves out of the muck of their childhood. This is me: loving the person you are today by Chrissy Metz. A great book-dessert. 

Pearl Five

Failure happens all the time. It happens every single day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.” – Mia Hamm ♥

Have a beautiful first week of September!

♥, Wendy

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