No Fear – Weight Loss Edition

No fear is a mantra that I have adopted for 2014.  It wasn’t something I planned to adopt but something that feels like it applies to how I want to live my life this year (and beyond).  The idea itself came out of my resolutions (although I probably owe the seed that started it to the friends who have nicknamed me courage girl) when I decided I wanted to blog more.  When I looked at all the things I had written and not posted it was obvious to me that I was in most cases just too chicken to put them up.  Well once I started thinking about no fear when it came to my writing I also started to realize it was applying to a lot of my other resolutions as well so I might as well just make it my mantra.  It runs through my brain when I’m doing something, especially if it is something I don’t want to do or have shied away from in the past.  Saturday became the first day though I really had to apply the mantra and make the decision to live by it.  It also became the day when I realized how important the idea behind it is to me.

When I first started my blog I created a little spot on the side that I could update with my weight loss.  It started with a grand total of the weight I wanted to lose and how much I had lost so far.  The plan was to update it each week and it went well at first until I started to gain weight.  I was embarrassed and disappointed in myself and so I just stopped updating it.  Looking back this was a huge mistake because it allowed me an excuse to ignore that little box.  Over the past few years (usually around the start of the year) I refresh the little box and make the same plans to update it regularly and each time the same thing has happened.  So this year as I updated it again I took some time to think about why something that should work as a powerful tool to inspire myself (and hopefully others) is so hard to update regularly and the answer was simple – fear. 

I will willingly admit that I am a perfectionist and maybe a little bit competitive.  If I’m going to do something I want to make sure I do it the best I can and better than anyone else.  These traits although probably not the most desirable have served me well in a lot of things but I have also started to realize that they have a negative side that I hadn’t been as willing to notice.  When it came to my weight loss (and a few other things like school) if I couldn’t do it the best or perfectly I wouldn’t try because then at least I have an excuse as to why I’m not at the top.  When it came to updating my weight loss spot on the blog the same problem was creeping in.  I wasn’t willing to admit to myself or anyone else that I was struggling and any less than perfect.  I didn’t want to show people that my weight wasn’t always dropping because in my head I felt like I should always be losing.  It was the expectation that I put on myself.  The problem with this is that it started to create a great deal of shame for me.  Rather than deal with the disappointment of not losing my solution instead was to ignore it and not do any updates.  I would just tell myself that it was okay to skip a week because I will just update it again when I’m down.  (This became a big issue when I gained all the weight I lost back after a friend’s passing.)

So on Saturday when I was faced with the first gain of the year I had a choice to make – either I ignore it or I post it.  So I chose to post it.  This was even scarier because this year I’m also posting it to my Facebook.  I was worried how people would view it and worried they would judge me for gaining.  This of course turned out to be silly thinking because the people that are going to comment or say anything are all incredibly supportive of me.  Posting it also helped me not to get too hung up on the gain.  I mean the reality is my journey is going to be a long journey.  I know there are going to be gains in weight because I have had them in the past but that shouldn’t negate the positive strides I have made in finding a healthier lifestyle.  It’s like my dad always says ‘it’s not the week to week that matters but the overall curve.  As long as it’s going down you are on the right track.’  (Who would have thought your parents might be right about some things!)

This year I will define no fear and weight loss to mean that I am accepting of whatever numbers I get on the scale.  I will do everything I can to make sure they are going down but I won’t let small gains set me back.  A gain on the scale does not mean my journey is broken or off track.  It is just a small speed bump – it slows me down but doesn’t stop me from going forward.  When I get to the end of the year and am looking back on 2014 sure I want to see my weight lower than it was at the start but I also want to see so much more.  I want to see that I have made more good choices than bad.  I want to know that I have found a way to become more regularly active.  I want to know that I am healthier than I was on January 1.  More than all of those thoughts though I want to get to the end of the year and be able to look back on my journey and be excited about all that I have accomplished.