Being a Happy Owl isn't a free pass to gain weight!

5^th April 2013

“One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.” - Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, Pavarotti, My Own Story

I wrote a very heartfelt blog yesterday and it obviously hit home because a lot of people read it, I just want to add to it that losing the ‘diet mentality’ doesn’t mean stopping with a weight loss journey, for me the ‘diet mentality’ is that all or nothing attitude, the punishment route.  In my world my real enjoyable weight loss journey isn’t rushed actually it never ends because I will always be aware of what I eat and of what I weigh.  My bestie and me had a chat the other day and discussed whether we’d throw our scales out if we weren’t Weight Watcher leaders and my answer is no I wouldn’t because they are one way of keeping me aware of my eating behaviour, just as my blog is one way of keeping me aware of my mood and my pedometer is a way of keeping me aware of my activity levels.  My health is extremely important to me and yes I am a “Happy Owl” (Over Weight Lady/Lad) but the overweight bit is controlled, I’m not willing to let myself get any heavier, just because I don’t want to be a certain bmi acceptable number doesn’t mean I don’t have my own perfect number, they just don’t agree with each other.

 

Giving myself permission to indulge and have a bit of what I fancy doesn’t mean constantly overeating whilst thinking “it’s ok, I’m a Happy Owl, I love me and the skin I’m in!”  No, that would be silly, I don’t stick my fingers in my ear and sing ‘la la la la la’ and pretend that what I weigh and eat doesn’t affect my physical or emotional health. 

Being a true Happy Owl is about realism and balance, it’s about firstly realising that what you weigh doesn’t define you as a person because you are and will always be AMAZING but accepting that what you weigh may be affecting your health and mood.  The next step is to decide to do something about it whilst loving yourself along the way, which for me means that; 

This Happy Owl doesn’t beat herself up when she isn’t 100% within her ProPoints allowance because she realises that it’s unrealistic to expect perfection in the overloaded food environment that we live it.

This Happy Owl doesn’t eat ‘diet’ food or those foods considered to be good for you, just because they are considered to be good for you or help you lose weight!

This Happy Owl no longer lets the numbers on the scales dictate her mood; yes I’ll get on them and maybe say ‘ouch’ or ‘yay’ but they aren’t a mood predictor for the day, they’re a guide as to whether I’m in balance with my food consumption.

This Happy Owl does find ways to be active that she enjoys and refuses to do activity that she doesn’t, so for example this time last year I was running and really enjoying it, this year I’m enjoying walking my dog more instead – we still cover the same distances we just do it at a slower speed and my joints are thanking me for that decision.

This Happy Owl realises that life isn’t always easy and accepts that, then she finds ways to make it as enjoyable as possible and when presented with a difficult time works on how to make it better or learns to live with it.

This Happy Owl acknowledges the fact that there is no ‘one perfect diet’ for everyone, there can’t be can there, how can all the experts be right if everyone of them is saying something different?  I’ve realised that a weight loss plan gives me structure, I’ve also realised that most people approach them all wrong.  Weight Watchers ProPoints are a tool I use to help me see if I’m making healthy choices and they also help me control the yum yum choices!

Another thing this Happy Owl has realised and accepted is that you are your thoughts, you will be exactly who you expect yourself to be, so if you give yourself a label such as “failure”, “depressed”, “fat”, “out of control” whatever that label is, your subconscious will do it’s best to get you to be that person, so it’s good to change the way you think, isn’t a positive going to be a better thought!  I much prefer a label that’s saying “I’m fabulously gorgeous and wonderfully happy.”

And this Happy Owl totally realises we seek pleasure constantly in our life, love, food, everything, when we don’t get pleasure or something is painful, we avoid it, so if you’re trying to stick to ridiculous diets and eat stupid food combinations the pleasure starts to go, and when we don’t get that - if we try find pleasure in food and it’s not there our appetite and hunger goes up and makes us crave those pleasurable foods more and this is why we fail on those so called ‘guaranteed success diets’ that never work!   

And all these things are why this Happy Owl who loves to eat because it’s one of the fundamental pleasures in life is constantly looking for ways to do that in a delicious way, whilst maintaining a healthy mind and body and keeping her weight at a number she’s happy with.

And from what I’ve seen Easter sure played its toll on us all re our eating behaviour, and this weather seems to be having an effect on our mood, the majority of us have had enough of the cold and a lot of people are comfort eating!  We can’t do anything about the weather but we can comfort eat in a healthy way and we can also do things to improve our mood, if you’re suffering with the blues research it more on google - I always find a good walk in the fresh air and sunshine (even the cold version) helps, I find watching comedy cheers me, talking about how I feel and reading uplifting material all helps, the one thing that never seems to lift my mood for very long is overeating so I’ve stopped doing that if I’m down.  If I overeat it’s because the food is delicious or I’m happy because I don’t want to associate delicious food and eating gorgeous with being miserable.  Also when I overeat, it doesn’t go no for days or weeks or months because I AM A HAPPY OWL!

Make today a glorious day xx