How I Lost 125 lbs.- Part 2: Digging Deep

Edited, revised and reposted.  Getting better all the time. :)

I continue writing about my weight loss journey in hopes that it might help someone somewhere find the path that is right for them. Since I began writing about my weight loss I have been asked by many people to cut to the chase, get to the point, or in other words, “Just tell us what you did!”

I know some might not be interested in all this back story.  However, I really do believe the path behind is worth taking the time to explore especially if it can help us heal ourselves today and make it easier to walk the path ahead. And I truly believe if I had come to my new way of eating without first having been through what I went through, I would have done what I always did... lose a few pounds only to gain it back again.  So, I ask you to slow down and walk beside me for a while. And if you haven't read part one, you might want to do that now. 

http://squeezingthefruit.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-i-lost-125-lbs-and-have-survivor.html

I needed to get myself geared up to get back in shape, but I always seemed to work so hard and somehow ended up right back where I had started.  This was the cycle all of my life really. Gain. Lose. Gain it back again. And that's why although I was always on a diet, I was still over weight.

I remember being at a party with my husband one night. I was talking with some girls about working out. I was feeling great! I had been working out for about 6 weeks and had lost a little over 15 lbs. I was proud of myself and I was feeling good. I thought I looked awesome. I was out with the man I love. I worked all day pumping myself up for an evening out.  Telling myself no one cares what I look like.  I'm an old married woman anyway. I'll just hang out with the girls!  Of course, I was the biggest girl there. I was always the biggest girl at the party. At least that's how it felt. But, there I was stepping out of my comfort zone, chatting with some chickas. Good times. Till one of the girls brings up the topic of working out. Hey, I know about this topic! I can contribute!

Like most girls who have struggled with their weight, I knew a lot about how to lose weight. I had done it many times. I also knew a lot about working out. My hubby was an avid reader of Muscle & Fitness magazine, which I regularly read and discussed with him. Plus, I had been an active gym member for some time, so I could hold a my own in a discussion about fitness any day. So, I mentioned something about working out that week and this girl looks me up and down, does a "Ppfft!" and turns her back to me.  Huh?? What?? Who me? Did you just do that to me? I bit my lip, blinked back the tears and walked away.  I felt cut off at the knees and powerless. All the hard work and progress I had made wasn't enough. I was still seen as 'the fat girl.'  I almost certainly reached for food to comfort myself like I always did. And thus the cycle began again. I knew I should have just stayed home!  I let her ruin that night. With a look or a word I could go from on top of the world to down in the ditch.

I spent a lot of my life giving away my power like that. I looked into other people's eyes for them to tell me who I was and what I was worthy of.  I gauged how I felt about myself with the feedback I got from others. If I didn't get enough positive feedback, I was not good enough.  The girls at the party had flipped a very deeply ingrained switch in my head.  I was repeatedly told by my paternal grandfather that 'nobody likes a fat girl.' 

This was his mantra with me during my formative years when the weight was coming on. He could see what was ahead and I know his heart was in the right place. He didn't want me to feel the pain that came with being different.  But, the way he said it, "nobody likes a fat girl," told me that if I was heavy, I was bad.  And you see? I was fat and those girls didn't like me.  Not the truth of the situation, that that one girl was a bitch. Oh no, not that!

It was ME!  It had to be me! "I'm not worthy of love because I am not the girl my family wants me to be... Even my family doesn't accept me. I embarrass my family."  I would play that old tape in my head over and over.  And God help me, if I had lost a few pounds and anyone failed to notice. See, I wasn't worthy enough for them to notice! Why the hell am I doing all this hard work if no one is going to notice any way?? And then I'd quit.  It was easy to quit. I didn't really trust myself to follow through anyway, because deep inside me I realized I had this root of rejection and I was just waiting for everyone to confirm what I already believed: I wasn't good enough.  My programming started early and was deep.

A self fulfilling prophesy happens when you believe something in your heart and then you will go about making sure that your outer world reflects your inner world. You will look for every situation that supports your thought and outright ignore anything that contradicts it. That way every time you confirm what you thought, you get to say, See??? I was right!!! I am NOT worthy of love... or happiness... or whatever your programming was.  But that's just the thing I learned: it's all just programming and we have to reprogram our thoughts to reflect what we WANT to see in our life, not what we don't want.  But how many times did I do exactly the opposite?? How many times did I sabotage any progress I made with just a few words from someone whether it was stranger or my own family? And there were always words.

The weight is a symptom of a much deeper issue most of the time. And most of that time, we are totally unaware of it.  If you would have asked me back then, I would have told you I had GREAT self esteem and I loved myself unconditionally.  I thought I did back then.  I was unaware of the deep battle within and how I had become numb to those tapes I played over and over telling myself that I was flawed and not good enough the way I was. Consequently, I engaged in self fulfilling prophesy behavior over and over again without even knowing it.

So, there I was after having my second child, I had lost some weight but was tired of working hard, and it seemed inevitably becoming stuck once again in the cycle of 'lose a little/gain a little.' One afternoon, I watched a movie called The Secret. In this movie they discuss how our thoughts shape our reality. The major focus of this movie disappointingly is the acquisition of wealth. I wasn't so struck with that as I was with the idea that I had been creating everything in my life.  I realized the fact that the major thoughts I had were not all that positive, but filled with worry most of the time (if I was honest with myself.) It made me wonder how my life might have been different and what kind of life I could now create with the help of The Almighty, of course. This is where my voyage of self discovery began.

I had an awakening. It was as if I had known this stuff all my life somewhere deep inside... like a dormant seed of knowledge and now it had been watered and fed a little and was beginning to grow, but it wasn't content to grow in a cramped space. These new ideas needed room to breathe and stretch. I wanted to know more about the law of attraction, quantum physics, reality... all of it! So, I moved on to deeper material.  The more I read, the more I saw that there was something to all of this.  There was a connectedness to it all.

One thing my husband and I both began to incorporate into our daily routine almost immediately upon learning about it was meditation. It seemed that this was perhaps the most important tool to quieting the chatter inside my head long enough to break the habitual thinking.  We found a program we still use today almost 4 years later. It's called Holosync and we found it and one of our favorite teachers, Bill Harris, at Centerpointe.com.   And I will be happy to discuss my meditation journey in another post. For now, let's keep moving forward.

Along with daily meditation, I began reading lots of different teachers. Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth was pivotal to my inner awakening.  It may be a bit 'new age-y' for some, and that's ok.  For me it all made perfect sense and it resonated with me at a very deep level. 

I could actually see how time and time again in my life I had created exactly what happened to me.  Anyone who looked at my life would say I was happy, talented, loving and blessed.  And I was.  But, my life was not all I thought it could be. I had very little inner peace and my health was far from optimal. I was over weight. I worried ALL the time.

I mean, I was a world class worrier. I come from a long line of worriers. I could play scenes in my head that would make anyone drop to their knees and weep, yet I played those scenes over and over. My husband might be 10 minutes late and I have him dead in a ditch and would actually bring myself to tears many times imagining what it must feel like to go through such sorrow. I would read the paper and weep over car accidents.  Anyone's child getting hurt translated to my own daughter getting killed.

It was so unhealthy both mentally and physically.  I can see that now. But, when you are in the thick of living it, worry pretends to be important. You think you worry because you care. You pat yourself on the back because you care so much, but in the meantime you are just bringing horrid negativity to your mind and horrid stress to your body. 

Meditation changed so much of that for me. It quieted my thoughts long enough for me to feel the peace that passes all understanding that I had heard so much about and prayed for so many times. Once I had those moments of freedom, I wanted more.

To Be Continued...