Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Yep, this ******g OH website can be a pain in the ass ESPECIALLY on long posts.

At one point in time I used to write my posts on a document and cut and paste them here. I should probably do the same thing again after today. Just chapped my hide, that did!

Oh for fuck's sake!!

I needed a love button for that!

See I see Just do It as the opposite. I spend so much time trying to figure out "how" to lose weight or maintain again. The truth is, anything can work. But if I have to wait for unstressed days with enough sleep that aren't celebrating something or socializing something or for the perfect diet plan that has perfectly planned macros or is keto or...you get the idea...well then I'm just going to keep waiting. I don't live in a bubble. Stress happens. Sick babies happen. Birthday cake happens. As (Diane S.?) said, these are good explanations. But if I'm going to be successful, I have to learn to navigate these, and just do it already.

But this is just my own personal truth. But I see it as the opposite of self-sabotaging. I find it as the simple truth when I'm trying to make things more complicated than they need to be.

BB, I think I've shared that 3 of my most monumental gains were after the arrival of my children. I only gave birth to the first and didn't gain a ton during the pregnancy. I was at the lower points of my weight when the other DD and DS arrived via adoption. BUT I gained a LOT in the 9 months to a year following their arrivals. I think it was change in routine, being tired, and even more the focus on the child rather than myself. I think I just said "fuck it" in my brain. I'm sharing this in the hope that you can avoid it or at least understand it.

I am attempting a loose recreation of my lost post. I do so because what I wrote was for me a body of head work that I believe is worth sharing.

On the surface the "Just Do It" philosophy seems simple. Make a decision and follow it through. DONE! Ah, but were it so simple, would there even be a need for such a saying? Wouldn't we all "Just Do It?" Really, why would anyone, anyone at all, need WLS, if "Just Do It" is truly so simplistic and the follow through to your decision to "Just Do It" is a road lubricated with success? Offensive? Perhaps, but do you understand my logic?

If "Just Do It" didn't work before WLS (and clearly we all chose WLS because JDI didn't just do it), why in God's name do we think "Just Do It" should work now?

I know that I read all y'all's posts each day with the perspective of someone who has had profound regain. I get that. But I think it's pretty clear that not one of us who posts regularly here has managed "Just Do It" successfully long term. I read posts that are not my own that are laced with shame, shoulda-woulda-couldas, regrets for not having been perfect in certain situations, and on and on. One of the hardest aspects of being on the journey to or from obesity is the self judgement we inflict on ourselves. How many times have we decided that we are "...just gonna XYZ..." and been upset with ourselves when we have not done XYZ? I can't even count how many times I've done that with my eating and weight loss "goals".

Just Do It is riddled with the shadows of all or nothing or black and white thinking: Just don't eat sugar, Just don't eat after 8:00 pm, just drink 10 8 oz glasses of water each day, just exercise X number of times per week, just eat from the veggie tray at the party, just have ONE glass of wine, etc...

There is never a perfect time to start on an eating behavior modification regimen (DIET). There is always a weekend get together, a work function, a vacation upcoming, the dreaded "Holidays" that will get in the way. That's not what I'm really talking about here. In that respect, I understand you may have a "Just Do It" and get started approach. That I understand.

It is the long term success with "Just Do It" that concerns me. For most of us here I don't think simply being thin or a certain clothing size or seeing the scale register a certain number when we step upon it is enough incentive to "Just Do It" and stay doing it. I think we really do at some point need to pick ourselves up off the shelf, dust off our jackets, crack open our inner books and start looking at the pages that make up who we are. My desire to be thin is not enough to keep me "doing it". My desire to be thin is not really the true desire. It's not the outcome that I'm really after. Being thin is a symbol that represents the outcome that I don't like to bring out in the open.

"I am wrong." I have lived that sentence for so many years. Being thin doesn't change that. I'm still wrong. So, I am seeking to change the narrative of who I am to me inside. I know that I find intrinsic value in eating crap food. Emotional eating of highly pleasurable and sensory stimulating food has been a comfort and a crutch for five sixths of my life. "Just Doing It" is not going to change a lifetime history of habit. I understand that "Just Doing It" doesn't change my body dysmorphia, or years of negative self talk.

I have spent multiple years of trying to "just do it" in the diet and eating department and hmmmm.... I don't think it's served me so well. When I finally started looking at why "Just Do It" wasn't working, the trappings behind my eating behaviors, my acceptance of WLS "failure" (I found out that's what my personal case is referred to and statistically categorized in the WLS industry), and above all understanding that certain habits and foods still had significant enough value that they overshadowed the conscious desire to be thin, did I start having a chance at figuring out how to strategize to start having some wins in this battle.

So, in my very long winded way, I challenge you to not "Just Do It", but instead ask yourself why you just haven't done it. Calendars and events don't count. Be honest. Why do you not "Just Do It"? You may find that when you know the answer the need to drop 3, 5 or 10 or even 20 pounds lessens. Perhaps there is much more going on with you internally than you wish to recognize. Maybe you'll discover that there is a part of you that truly believes you don't deserve a beautifully trim body. Perhaps you'll discover you are so terrified of being fat again, because prior to WLS that's how it always turned out, that you believe on a core level it's hopeless to even try. You are paralyzed. Maybe you'll discover, like I did, that who you want to be and who you are are really two separate things and you can never, ever be the person you strive to be in your mind's eye. Sometimes you have to change your thinking to accommodate self acceptance, reality and personal truth before you can "Just Do It."

A friend recently wrote a blog about why men don't like women who are funny. What she discovered in the blog comments was that no one agrees about what "funny" means.

I think we're about to discover about a dozen meanings of if "Just do it."

I think you're right. The way I internalize JDI is very different than what Peps is describing, though I cannot seem to put it in words, and at the end of the day our own road to health is an individual as each of us.