10 years - so much has changed in my head!

9^th October 2014

Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know. Pema Chodron

Well it turns out me and my girls made the November copy of the Weight Watcher magazine, page 117, it’s only a little bit but I finally made it, always fancied myself in the mag I won’t lie, so finding that out yesterday made me smile.  

I love my job and I realised yesterday that it was ten years since I was accepted by Weight Watchers for training, I then spent the next month in various Weight Watchers meetings with different leaders, finding out how to do this new role I’d taken on, then on 19^th November I went to workshop, before passing my final assessment on 7^th December to be a leader.  The last ten years have been amazing and each day I learn more about what makes us tick not just regarding our weight loss journey’s but our behaviour, our feelings and how we live our lives because to be fair weight loss is connected to all of these.  See it turned out being a leader is so much more than just a job, it’s so much more than helping people lose weight and that’s why it’s such a rewarding role. 

Yes I’ve learnt a great deal about the weight loss journey which is why now ten years on instead of talking “diet” as I did when I first got to goal, because back then it was all very black and white to me, I thought I had it sussed, despite the fact I’d been ‘dieting’ since I was 18 and had a handful of gold membership cards with Weight Watchers. Yep back then I was still doing it wrong, I was cutting everything out for a few months to get to goal, turning it into a project, going to the extremes, thinking I could eat that way forever – basically fooling myself that I had control of my emotions and my eating habits – WATEVA! 

I’ve since learnt I didn’t, I actually never will have complete control 100% of the time – why not?  Because I’m a living, breathing, emotional, feeling, human being who’s not living in a bubble, or not prepared to be that controlled and rigid that I remove the pleasure and pain from my life.  I like this sometimes crazy, often messed up version of me because I’ve accepted her and I love her and it’s made for a healthy and happy version of me who no longer looks in the mirror and sees someone who should ‘be better’, who is ‘disappointed’ because I can’t stay on track and keep my weight at a ridiculously low bmi, “who’s trying to live to according to societies standards”.

Nope that’s not me anymore, I’m now accepting of myself and all my traits and I like myself, I decided enough was enough, and now I live a healthy & happy life which isn’t the result of getting to your goal weight. It’s how you feel when you realise that taking care of your body on a daily basis makes you feel good, understanding that there’s more to weight loss success than looking slimmer.  It’s realising that you’re eating behaviour won’t always be perfect and your meal choices won’t always be what you hoped or planned and that’s okay because you’re not a robit who makes the best choices all the time.  At least you are dealing with the challenges your faced with on a daily basis because you know and you’ve realised you’re as important as everyone else and you deserve to take care of yourself.  I believe Healthy & Happy is a mindset because you realise you’re worth it!

This Weight Watcher ten years on has changed so much and I hope I’ve helped to change the way a lot of my members think too, it’s about taking care of yourself because you love yourself not because some doctor tells you to lose weight.  You don’t need someone to tell you that you’re overweight, we all know when we look in the mirror whether we need to lose weight or not.  Further to popular belief, us overweight folk are overweight not stupid, we have mirrors too!  And if losing weight was as easy as being told to, then we’d all be slim wouldn’t we!

Even after ten years, when I witness one of my member beating themselves up because they’ve overindulged, or not been on track or haven’t lost that week it still hurts me, I want so much to get them to understand how my brain thinks about it all so that they stop with the ‘self-hating’ and start with the ‘self-loving’, that they realise it’s a forever journey and it won’t always be perfect just like everything else in life.  That their bodies aren’t machines and don’t always work as they should and give the weight loss they expect.  If only it were that easy, it isn’t, even I very occasionally revert to that old version of me with that negative thought pattern so…..

We all have to find our own way, some take longer than others, some unfortunately will never find it because they’re looking in the wrong place, but personally I believe that until you learn to love the version of you that you are now, you won’t ever love any version of you whatever you weigh, not completely anyway.  Your weight doesn’t define you, your thoughts, actions and behaviours do and if you want to be liked by others, start by liking yourself.

Have a great day BeYOUtiful, realise how amazing you are and focus on the healthy & happy.  I shall mostly be weighing incredibly, amazing, inspirational people.