Turning Negative into Positive: Reframing Weight Gains

I am trying to live a more positive life and shed the negativity that I feel has held me back in my past.  My weight loss journey is full of ups and downs and used to be full of negative emotions usually stemming around setbacks on the scale.  The reality of my weight loss journey (and I suspect I’m not alone) is that gains happen.  It took me a long time to come to terms with that simple fact.  It took me even longer to figure out a process that allows me to work with the weight gains and turn it into something I can learn from.

Once I accepted the fact that gains happen I was able to let the frustration of the gain go, especially as I began to see patterns in the gains that I could predict.  This has proved to actually be very liberating for me.  It has allowed me to look at it more objectively.  It gave me the room I needed to step back from the emotions and really look at what is going on.  I think the process needed for this will be highly individual but I thought I would share mine.

The first step I always take when trying to figure out what is happening is to look at my trackers – my food tracker and my Fitbit.  These two things have been incredible tools in helping me evaluate the things I have done.  They keep me honest.  I mean it’s hard to argue a weight gain when you look back and your food tracker shows you had desserts every night and ate more points than you are allowed. 

When it comes to my food tracker the most common sign I know that I’m going to be up is that I either didn’t fill it out at all or I only half-filled it out.  These are two signs that I have usually decided that I don’t care what I’m about to do – it is my rebellious side sneaking out (and yes she exists even if she doesn’t show herself very often). 

My Fitbit is still a tracker I’m learning about.  I haven’t had it long enough to develop the patterns that I know will either equal a weight gain or loss.  If I have a gain though and my steps are down I figure it is probably a safe bet that I should have tried to find more time to move during the week.  There may be outside reasons/excuses for my steps being down(-30 degree temps for example) but sadly my body doesn’t care about the excuses – it won’t do what I want it to if I don’t do the things I know I need to.

Often looking at the trackers is enough to satisfy my need to know why I had a gain.  When I first started this process once I had an answer I would stop looking.  I discovered the problem with this is that I would repeat the mistakes over and over again.  I knew I needed to change this so I added the second part to my process.  After looking at the trackers now I sit down and take time to reflect.  Not only do I look at the mental side of my week (stresses, mood, ect) but I also try to figure out what triggered whatever my trackers are showing me.  This step is where I have really begun to learn about my body, my habits and my triggers.

The art of reflection is a powerful skill but sadly not one that comes easily at least to me.  I have found though that if I put in the effort to reflect on anything that it has always paid off for me.  My tool for reflection is a pen and a paper.  My journal is a spot where I write everything out in my brain  and then I can actually look at it with a little distance.  It is a scary twisted book but the ramblings on the page allow the novelist in me to look at myself as a character I need to fix.  This way of doing it won’t work for everyone but I would be lost without it.  I’m a firm believer change can’t happen without some sort of reflection.

This week is the perfect example for how I use my process.  I knew even before going to weigh in yesterday that the scale was going to be up.  I can generally know what the scale is going to tell me and it is usually because my gains are now predictable.  First I looked to my trackers and not only was I down on step totals each day but my food tracker is blank except for Monday’s breakfast.  Mentally my mood was down this week and I didn’t have any motivation. 

The reflection part of the process was a bit more challenging because I ask every kid’s favourite question, “Why?”  When I first start to write the easy answers spilled onto the page – I was scrapbooking, it was too old outside – and although these are logical reasons to me I can’t accept them and call them excuses.  (My definition of an excuse is a reason that I have no control over.)  The reality of my life is there will be more scrapbooking retreats and winter lasts forever so unless I’m willing to accept more gains I need reasons that I can actually fix.

Digging a little deeper I was able to find a clearer, more fixable issue.  In stepping back and looking at all aspects of the past week I realized that going into my scrapbooking weekend I gave myself permission not to care.  I didn’t want to have to worry about tracking my food (or even paying attention to the food choices) or trying to get my 10000 steps.  This would have been fine if I could have limited this attitude to the weekend.

The problem is I have a hard time starting up again if I shut off.  I came to realize after last weekend that I actually subconsciously write off the whole week because I have thrown away the weekend.  Looking back on past experiences I’m not sure why I didn’t see this sooner but it makes perfect sense and is something I have done quite often.  This is a problem that I can find a solution for and prepare for though.  Luckily it is also a problem that I have time to work on before I’m presented with a similar situation again. 

The quick solution though to get me back on track is to pull out some of the tools I regularly use.  So even before weighing in on Saturday I pulled out my meal plan template and recipe books to plan food for the upcoming week.  I did a proper shopping trip on Friday night to stock my fridge with yummy, healthy fresh food.  I also promised myself to do better this week so that no matter what the scale says next week I know that I did the right things.

Before I end this little blog entry I should put a caveat on this process though.  My process doesn’t always work.  There are times in my journey where I have done everything right and still had the number on the scale be up.  These are still frustrating to me but because I can look back and see when they happened over time (because of my obsessive tracking skills) I was able to find a solution to at least some of them (damn hormones!).  The times when the process doesn’t work for me at least though I can step away from it knowing that I have done what I can to ensure that I have the success I want.  Not finding answers doesn’t mean the process failed it just means that maybe the answer is still waiting to be found later.

Working through the problem (ie weight gain) has become something I have gotten pretty good at.  It has taken time, practice and lots of patience to figure it all out.  I use the tools I have at hand and make them work for me.  They will show me the truth of what is going on versus whatever story I may tell myself.  The one thing that I stand by though is that turning negatives into positives is powerful, liberating and motivating all at the same time.  It has always proved to be worth the effort in my opinion.  We might not be able to avoid the negative side of life all the time but at least we can find a way to make it work for us.

2014 Monthly Goal Check-In for January/February

I am lucky enough to have some really smart friends that are willing to put up with me as I steal their ideas to help my own creativity.  One such friend (who has a lovely little book review blog here) and last year she was posting monthly updates on her resolutions for the year.  I think this is a brilliant idea and have decided to high grade it for my own blog.  It is my hope that this monthly check-in will help keep me on track and lead me to a completed check list of goals for in December (especially since even in two months I’ve already managed to ignore a couple of my goals).  Anyone that is looking to check out my original list for the year can read all about it in the entry New Year’sResolutions Past and Present.

1) Move More/Lose More
Of all the goals that I set for myself this year this one is moving along the best and most smoothly.  I’m regularly hitting my 10,000 step goal for the day.  This goal will be changing to 11000 for the months of March and April as I step my way to the year-end goal of 15,000 steps a day.  I’m meeting my goals currently at least in part thanks to a friend/co-worker that not only cheers me on but is willing to walk with me one lunch hour a week at my pace.  She is one of those crazy active people that I aim to be like but haven’t quite gotten there yet.  It is amazing to be finding support for my journey and has proved to be very motivating for me.

When it comes to the lose more part of this goal I have to say I’m incredibly proud of the way the year is going.  I’m currently down about 11.6 pounds for the year.  I am finding my clothes are fitting better.  I’m more comfortable in my skin and just generally feeling really good about the progress I am making.  I can see my future healthy self and I am racing to catch her.

2) One Day a Week Vegetarian
This sadly is one of the goals that I had forgotten I had made for myself.  I am still cooking vegetarian meals and dishes but have not been diligent on planning and creating meat free days.  I shall remedy this for the month of March.

3) Regular Blog Posts
A look at the lists of posts I have done in 2014 shows that I have also not been paying much attention to this goal at least in terms of actually getting results.  I don’t consider this goal completely forgotten though because in the last couple of months I have been working hard offline to move my blog in the right direction.  I have spent time working on a plan and vision for my blog.  Now it is just the time to start to put that plan into action.

4) 365 Photo-a-Day Project
All though this project feels a lot more challenging this year, I’m happy to say it is well underway.  I have yet to miss a day and somehow am finding things to take pictures off.  The challenge this year is an unexpected internal voice that has popped up that keeps saying things like, “you took that photo last year” or “do you really need another picture of your cat?” (this last one sounds a lot like my brother.)  I have to keep reminding myself that the project is meant to capture my everyday life.  My life sadly is not always exciting and interesting – in fact more times it would probably be described as quiet and dull – but that just means I need to work on doing more fun things each day.

5) Read 50 Books
The progress on this goal when compared to this time last year is astounding to me.  I’m making way more headway on this than I did in 2013.  So far in 2014 I have read 8 books, which have me right on target to hit 50.  I think the biggest difference is that I am making reading a priority in my life now.  I try to read at least a little bit each day and it has been wonderful.  Not only is it helping me complete this goal but it has been inspiring my own fiction writing.  
                Favourite books read in Jan/Feb were Ashfall by Mike Mullin and The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level by Chris Hardwick
                Most challenging book that sadly got put down was The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert Edsel. – I wanted to love this book but couldn’t pull my way through its pages.  I will try again though before the year is done.

6) Nanowrimo challenge Complete a Draft of Conor’s Story
I have decided to change this goal to finishing a draft of my currently historical fiction novel.  I have fallen in love again with my main characters and don’t want to wait to write them until the next nano challenge.  I have spent the last couple months relearning the story, the characters and reviewing all my research.  It has left me feeling very motivated and this goal is moving along at a good pace.

Overall I’m feeling really positive towards 2014.  For the first time that I can remember not only do I have very specific, goal focused plans that I’m starting to put into place but I also have mental pictures of where this year is leading me.  I can see my future as clearly as if I had just taken the photo and I know that nothing is going to stop me this year from getting everything I want.

Keeping Stress at Bay

Stress is such a huge trigger for so many people I know who are dealing with weight issues. I think stress eating is one of the topics I seem to talk the most about with people.  It fascinates me how each individual reacts and deals with stress.  For myself I’m trying to make sure that stress and stress eating will not define or derail my weight loss journey, which is much easier to think than make happen.

This last week put all my stress strategies to the test.  It was one of those weeks where things out of my control started going on around me.  Although I didn’t have control over them happening they were adding to the stress and tension I was carrying around.  First was the news that my Nan had to go back to the hospital again, and at 94 years old no matter the reason this is not something I take lightly.  This news was followed by discovering my car had scratches on it in about the same spot that I had fixed in December.  This left me thinking and feeling like the repair shop had ripped me off.  Next was finding out that we were being reclassified down at work which means that my title changes and I become red circled.  Essentially it means that I will not be getting a raise for at least six years (if my math is right).  Finally the last event was going to the repair shop and being made to eat a little crow when they showed me that the damage on the car was actually new damage.  So not only did I feel bad for thinking they had ripped me off but it also meant someone else had hit my car.

Historically a week like this last one would have sent me into binge mode.  I would have turned to all my favourite, fast, fatty and bad-for-me foods.  Things like chips, pizza and wings would have been at the top of the list of what my brain would tell me I was craving.  The weigh-in that would follow such a week would have been a nightmare and very much dreaded.  I’m sure others can relate to this where everything just gets derailed and you are left trying to clean up the wreckage after the fact.  This would generally lead me to even more frustration and feelings of disappointment in myself.

The reality of this past week for me though was actually quite different this time around.  I spent a great deal of my time acknowledging what was going on.  I made choices that helped guide me successfully through the week.  They were based on strategies I had come up with prior to all of this.  Preplanning these strategies quite literally saved this week for me from being a train wreck and I figured if there was ever a topic I should write about my stress strategies is probably an important one.

Strategy 1 – Writing

                I always deal with things better when I see them written.  It takes it out of my brain and calms me down.  It gives me a little space from the problem and lets me look at it like I would a character in a story I’m writing.  It helps me to work the problem rather than get lost in the emotion of it.

 

Strategy 2 – Reading

                When I had written my emotions and thoughts out but was still struggling I decided to pick up a book and tried to lose myself in the words.  Fiction has often saved me from things going on in my life by giving me a place to escape to; a world that I can always shut down if it is not going my way.  This week I found that wasn’t working all that well either.  I had a hard time focusing on the words and found reality kept pulling me out of my imagination.  Luckily I had one more strategy ready to go.

 

Strategy 3 – Distraction

                For this last strategy I turned to one of my favourite computer games, Sims 3.  The mindless distraction of controlling a digital person was a great way to keep my mind off wanting to eat the entire chip aisle at Safeway.  I can lose hours playing the game which normally isn’t a good thing but when I am trying to protect myself from my old habits I’m not going to complain.  It ate up time that would have been used for stressing by keeping my hands busy.

 

The results of these 3 strategies for me this week were amazing.  It was a huge boost to my confidence because it validated the work I had done on planning my strategies ahead of time.  I was put to the test and I survived.  It was proof I needed to know that the changes I’m making are sticking and becoming a part of my daily lifestyle.  It also left me feeling like I had some control instead of feeling like I was just spinning out.  Of course the most obvious benefit for me (but not the most important) was the fact that it also left me with a weight loss this week, which is always a huge bonus.

 

I wanted to share my strategies because stress control/management is not something unique to me.  All week I watched fellow co-workers deal with the news of reclassification in different ways.  It is around us all the time and I think whether you are dealing with weight issues or anything else stress sneaks in to affect us all.  So I end this entry with a question/challenge – what are you strategies for dealing with stress?  Share them with me so we can all learn from each other.  If you don’t have any strategies in place I highly suggest taking some time to come up with some that will work for you.  Stress in inevitable but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing.  It can be controlled and overcome with a little work, support and practice.