Scale It Down

As the writer of the content in this site, I must tell you that this whole experience, from the day I entered the GMA fat house to the point of sitting here writing to you right now as a Size 8 ( it still astounds me to be able to say that!), has been an incredible and personal journey. A journey so successful and life changing that there was nothing else left to do but '..stand on the highest tree tops and sing out to as many people as I could that, Control is the Goal', as our mission statement says.

I attribute the success of change not to weight loss but to change of thought. What always had astounded me about myself was that I was well aware of what good dietary habits were and did an okay job of keeping exercise in my life, yet I never could achieve permanent weight control, why was that? Was it lack of discipline? Lack of desire? My absolute infinite love of cheese? How could that be when I was so good at going on diets and losing weight? Doesn't that prove my discipline, desire and ability to do without cheese?

How could I diet so well only to regain so much - over, and over and OVER again? The experts would say it was because of lack of desire or that there could be some deep rooted psychological manifestation involved. I really don't believe it ever was due to lack of desire - for everyone who does want to lose weight and is willing to go on a diet, the initial motivation is there. On the other hand, blaming Mom, is just too easy at this point. (Okay, maybe she could have gone lighter on the meat 'n potatoes - but, when you're 40 something, that restitution seems pretty weak.) If something awful did haunt my past, then hopefully I'll seek whatever help it takes to rid those demons, if indeed they do come to visit.

For those of us who just have a love for food, that fat mentality that drives your desire to eat cheese, the entire matter comes down to how we think about it. We are the masters of our universe, the captains of our ships - we've just been steering the boat down the weighty channels for so long, we never noticed we were sinking the whole time. No matter what metaphor you use, behavior always comes down to 2 things: thought & action.

According to Anthony Robbins, "if you're not doing something, it's because you associate more pain to doing it than not doing it." This is exactly why we can always diet for a limited amount of time, just long enough to lose the weight, because the entire notion of dieting to begin with was so painful and disgusting in our minds, it took everything we had just to accomplish that. How could the notion of weight control ever sink into that mindset?

The time had finally come to do away with the diet mentality and refocus my energy on the ultimate goal - weight control. My ship had finally come in and when it did, everything began to change. It is up to you to decide where your ship will go next. How you float your boat and where you charter its course are two different things. The ideas and suggestions on this site are floatable mechanisms, but the course you choose has got to be a personal one, that works well with your thoughts, desires and lifestyle needs.

I truly believe that the weight loss process doesn't have to be a painful one and that successful weight control, doesn't have to exclude cheese. That's exactly what floats my boat and I'm sticking with it.

photo courtesy of Jack Spratt

One of my pals told me,"...the only way you're going to get rid of those granny arms is through surgery." (Only a girlfriend, could tell you that!) I know she's probably right, but I think I'll keep them around as a reminder that control is (always) the goal.