# forward motion! (finally!) - encouraging SLOW weightloss! -LONG



## cindy-e (Feb 14, 2008)

OK, I've been losing weight for a while now. It goes well, then it doesn't. And the usual list of suspects crop up in my head as to why I might not be having success. ... wrong diet, wrong exercise, wrong nutritional information, emotional eating... But I have decided that weight loss is a *whole person* endeavor. It isn't always about your body and what it is doing, or about your food intake, or about your exercise. Sometimes it is about the heart needing to make ajustment to new realities, like having to get up early to exercise, or making dietary adjustments that you can live with for the rest of your life. That is harder than just "following a diet", but more meaningful in the long term. Sometimes, it takes time to make decisions and juggle things in order to make time in your life for fitness (and finances too!) Life has a gravity pull of it's own, and sometimes the changes you need to make are like stopping a ball while it is rolling down hill. And sometimes, you are patiently taking other people in your family along with you, so that the whole family tree is changed, which can impact your personal journey. If you have kids, you become increasingly aware that your fitness journey impacts theirs as time goes by, and that is as it should be because you want them to make healthy choices now and not have to lose weight later! But it means making adjustments to your plans. 

So I have found that weight loss ebbs and flows. There are times when it is a struggle, and times when it just comes together. And that is OK! You are not "losing weight". You are "changing your life". 

Right now, weight loss is clicking for me. It has been a year or so since that has happened. I have been working out anyway, and doing my best, but the numbers on the scale have not changed much until now. You could look at it like I was clearing out logs in the dam so that I could continue to lose weight. Now, I could have gone around the dam, and done fad diets, or cut this or that, or tried 100 other things to manipulate my body to conform to my desire for weight loss, but the dam would still be there, and those barriers would only thwart me in the future, and I am pretty sure I would gain the weight back. And, let's be honest, it probably wouldn't have worked anyway.
But this set of logs is cleared, and I am having success. Hopefully, it is my last set of barriers, and I will reach goal weight. And if it is, I am relatively sure that I will stay there and not gain it all back, because I dealt with the logs that got me here in the first place. If not, if there is another set of barriers in the future, I will be nice to myself, deal with them, and then move on. I know I will get there eventually. =0) 

So, my encouragement to you is to pick a diet and an exercise plan that is reasonable (and there are several). Take the time to pick something you can live with for the rest of your life. And then, *stay the course!* Don't switch from one diet to another, or one workout plan to another, unless you have a very good reason to do so. Diet plans are not magic. If the barriers to weight loss exist in one plan, they will exist in another. Better to deal with yourself, than to keep changing external things, hoping that this will magically fix what is broken.

And be patient with yourself. It's OK to go slow. It might be preferable. You are not losing weight. You are changing your life... becoming fit, becoming a new person that you have to continually define and re-define as the weight comes off. You want different things. You are capable of different things. Discovering how that impacts your life in the long term takes time. And that is OK. 

Now, I am approaching 80 lbs of weight lost. It is finally clicking again. But just as important is all the stuff I learned about myself when it wasn't going well. Now I know not to skip over that stuff for a number on a scale. that is just not the only important thing going on here. And for that number to be what I want it to be, *and stay there*, I have to move the logs (the reasons) that caused the weight gain, not just go around them. 


So please be both nice to yourself, and honest with yourself if it isn't going well with weight loss right now. don't change the externals... look inward. you will find your log dam, move it, and keep going. And then you will find success. Just switching to the newest diet craze, or exercising more might work short term, but long term, not so much. I have noticed people implode in weight loss about 6 months in... mostly because they are doing things that they know they either can't or don't want to maintain long term. Going slow helps you find what will work for the rest of your life. That is important!

OK, FWIW,
Cindyc.


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## HappyFarmer (Jun 17, 2006)

Interesting post. Gives me something to think about - sustainable weight loss.

I'm so happy to hear you were able to get past those log jams, and come to terms with yourself. How long have you been trying to lose weight (from the very beginning)?

HF


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## cindy-e (Feb 14, 2008)

HappyFarmer said:


> Interesting post. Gives me something to think about - sustainable weight loss.
> 
> I'm so happy to hear you were able to get past those log jams, and come to terms with yourself. How long have you been trying to lose weight (from the very beginning)?
> 
> HF


91 weeks. And I have lost 80 lbs. So that isn't so bad. =0)

Cindyc.


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