What’s more interesting to me at this point is to start
understanding what I’ve learned in these last five years. It’s funny, because what
I thought I would learn and what I’ve actually learned have turned out to be
radically different things. So I’d like to take a little time in the next few
posts to talk about what I’ve discovered, to share with you some of the unexpected
nuggets I’ve unearthed along the way, starting with…
Unexpected Nugget #1: Confidence has nothing to do with it.
You’ve surely seen the Jennifer Hudson ad for Weight
Watchers that has been airing since the beginning of the year. Jennifer is the picture
of confidence, flaunting her new, slender body with a supreme conviction that
she has this weight thing handled. And, yes, you can get it handled too. It’s
not just this one ad, though. You’ve seen a parade of celebrities strike this pose:
Marie Osmond, Jessica Simpson, Kirstie Alley, Valerie Bertinelli, Oprah
Winfrey. In the Dogma of Diet Programs, it is canon law that sure as spring
follows winter, confidence follows weight loss.
Um, yeah.
This is the biggest lie. That when you finally achieve your “perfect”
weight, you will gain an enormous confidence that will carry you for the rest
of your (thin) life. For me, the opposite has been true. It’s my lack of confidence
that I “have this weight thing handled” that has been key to keeping the pounds
off. I never assume that I can eat anything with abandon. I always worry and
strategize when I know I’ll be in a situation that involves cookies. I don’t
trust myself to have certain foods in the house. Jennifer Hudson says that
Weight Watchers works for her because it lets her eat “real food.” But I know
that “real food” is just code for “food that makes me fat,” so I try to eat “real
food” (i.e. bread, pasta, potatoes, even <gasp> chocolate) as infrequently
as possible. All because I have no confidence whatsoever that I will
ever have any of this even close to “handled.”
You don’t need one iota of confidence to maintain a large weight
loss. What you do need is a strong motivation. My motivation comes from an
experience I had in which my excess weight hampered my recovery from a
relatively minor surgery. For about a week, I was a complete invalid and it
scared the crap out of me. I just didn’t want to go there ever again and in
that moment I resolved that I would lose weight. Every time my resolve starts
to waver, I think of how it felt to be an invalid and that sets me straight. Your
motivation might be something different and it doesn’t matter what it is – what
matters is that you have it.
Here’s the real truth of the matter: the smug complacency of
confidence is one of Inner Fat Girl’s best weapons in her quest to defeat Outer
Thin Girl. So forget confidence. Your best defense against her sneak attacks is
to outsmart her with a measured dose of fretting over food.
‘Cause a little worry goes a long way.
I agree with all you wrote.
ReplyDeleteConfidence does seem to signal losing mindfulness for a whole lot of people.
Really good post
Yes, mindfulness is key. A little dose of fear seems helpful also.
ReplyDelete