Hello Thrivers,
We have new people –and welcome!! – I’m sharing five super important posts to read. It’ll make these weekly posts a lot easier to understand. As for me, I’m re-reading these posts to brush up on my skills.
- Begin Here
- This Metaphor Is My Constant Companion as I Preserve My Weight Loss After Age Fifty
- Brownies for Breakfast
- 6 Pillars of Losing Weight After Age 50
- How to Conquer Your Evening Sugar Cravings
On with the show!!
Pearl One
Let’s talk stretch-goals. When we’re nurturing a stretch-goal it’s important to make plenty of room for it in our hearts and mind. I think that one reason people regain weight is that they never gave their heart and mind time to catch up with their new size. (Read twice; this last sentence is everything.)
The brain still tells itself that we’re an ugly duckling (not fitting in). Your brain hasn’t yet caught up to feeling like a swan. Give yourself as many swan messages as you can.
So, let’s say I want to go from 210 pounds to 180. As I’m slowly losing weight, I’m asking myself strong questions, developing smart habits, and learning success-based self-talk. We’ll do a deep-dive on the latter today.
I know this is the last thing anyone wants to hear, but slowly losing ten pounds (or less) and then “holding” (what we once called “plateauing”) is vital to your forever-loss.
Holding tells our brain, “Hey, we’ll be living at 200-pounds for a month, maybe more.” By holding at 200-pounds you haven’t freaked out your inner cavewoman who would otherwise assume that you’re in starvation-mode and rush to dunk you into the nearest vat of ice cream.
The first inroad a new idea or goal takes will be through our brain, right? We have a thought and the thought leads to a feeling.
Invite a New Size into Your World
As you’re losing weight or holding say to yourself throughout the day,“I’m living at a size-14 and it’s relaxing and fine.” “I can be a size-fourteen, everything is good and comfortable.” “Turns out, being at size-14 isn’t only for other people: it’s for me too!” (Start slowly: get comfortable with size-14 before you go further.)
- Then write these messages (about being a size-14) on 50 Post-its and stick the message throughout your day like on your bathroom mirror, wallet, steering wheel, laptop; get creative.
- Journal-write about the process of losing five to ten-pounds at a time, and then holding in between the losses. Challenge yourself to answer how do you feel at size-14? Answer in both the negative and the positive. Then get really specific and ask yourself specifically what is negative? What is positive?
- Double-down on eating a tiny dinner at 6 p.m. and — while everyone else is having birthday cake — you know that you’ll have yours by tomorrow by 9 a.m. with your morning coffee.
One Huge Change I’ve Made
There was a time when I didn’t understand how telling everyone that you’re living the Smart Eating Lifestyle could be a real problem; I didn’t realize that it could be detrimental to your early success.
I don’t say this lightly. For the first year or two of living on the Smart Eating Path, keep it private. It’s your personal information and it’s important that you don’t share it with the peanut-gallery (yes, I mean your immediate family, friends, and co-workers).
You’re embarking on a new mindset of losing and preserving for a lifetime, don’t share the news until you feel super comfortable. If you tell everyone about your new plan they may groan, “oh, no, not another diet” or “if it were going to help, wouldn’t it have by now?”
You don’t need their bad vibes. Just stay mum until you’re 100-percent confident about your new world. Credit goes to Mr. Jerry Seinfeld. He was being interviewed and responded to a question that he doesn’t show his jokes to anyone; he spends months crafting a joke before sharing one for fear of others’ negativity or lack of vision. Smart!
So, breathe in, “I’m 72 and it’s okay that I’m a size-12; (another breath) all is well. I’m fine. I can do this!!”
Remember to remind yourself in every way possible: from this moment forward, you’re a swan, you’re a swan, you’re a swan. ♥
Pearl Two
I thought you might like to hear a goofball way I sometimes challenge myself: I’ll buy a package of baby tomatoes or petite carrots, and see if I can finish them that weekend.
Chunking down goals is one way to make smart eating a smidge more interesting. I’ll repeat this quote because it’s so good; someone said, “I normalize the small wins as much as the big ones.”
I think of smaller wins being like, “I assertively asked my husband not to bring ice cream home for a while and he agreed.” Or, “I’ve acclimated myself to eat stir-fry veggies (Costco, frozen aisle by frozen strawberries) almost every night for dinner.” And of course, “I head to bed at 8 p.m. and sink into a book-dessert.” ♥
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.
Former Sequence
I’m pretending to be someone I grew up with called Kim.
- Situation (something concrete) I grew up in a home circa 1920 (my dad, mom, brother and I in 2.5 bedrooms, 1 bath) in a wealthy suburb. Everyone I knew lived in large homes, some overlooking the country club’s golf course.
- Automatic thought: I have friends getting cars for their sixteenth-birthday. I don’t fit in here. I don’t belong. We don’t belong. I’m not important in the scheme of things.
- Feeling: Mortified for the big-home people to find out about our life. Unworthy, not confident.
- Action: I didn’t invite friends to my house. When everyone left for college, I become a secretary to lawyers.
- Result: My husband and I fight about money a lot and I cringe when he “acts poor” like questioning menu prices when ordering at a restaurant. I want to keep the story going that “we belong here.”
Of course, Kim would need more than one bridge sequence. Let me know if you want me to include a bridge sequences too.
Chosen-Thought Sequence
- Situation (something concrete) I grew up in a home circa 1920 (my dad, mom, brother and I in 2.5 bedrooms, 1 bath) in a wealthy suburb. Everyone I knew lived in large homes, some overlooking the country club’s golf course.
- Chosen thought: It’s true, I’ve grown up in a wealthy tax bracket and it’s been hard on me. But I’m going to make it. Maybe I don’t have rich parents, but I do have great grades just like my peers. I’ll be self-made: success will be sweet.
- Feeling: proud and ready to enter life.
- Action: When my friends started talking about colleges, I talked to my school counselor who told me about the Pell grant, about grants in general, and the ins and outs of school loans.
- Result: I went to Sacramento State and majored in law. ♥
Pearl Four
When this book came out in 2010 I didn’t read it because I assumed it was all medical and doctor-y stuff. Boy was I wrong. Normally I recommend fiction books as a book-dessert, but I occasionally include awesome non-fiction too like the Splendid and the Vile, because they’re written like a fast-moving novel.
Plus, I only recommend non-fiction that’s researched within an inch of its life. The great non-fiction authors make a point of saying that if anything is in quotation marks the person was actually interviewed or the quote came from a diary. Because there’s so much research involved, these authors can’t pump out a book a year.
That said, I highly recommend The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Champagne for Ms. Skoot who knocked this story — that needed to be told – out of the park. If you’ve already read about Ms. Lacks, then you might want to try my favorite non-fiction: the Splendid and the Vile. Either way both are amazing book-desserts. ♥
Pearl Five
Good riddance to decisions that don’t support self-worth.” ♥
Ojprah
Have a wonderful week, everyone. And if you’re enjoying these posts, it would be awesome if you’d send it to a loved one!
♥, Wendy
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.
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!!
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. ♥
