Life’s greatest adventure is finding your place in the Circle of Life. - Lion King
Pulling food out of the trash can. Sneaking bites of frosting in the office kitchen. Hollowing out the inside of a pastry and putting it back. Eating one M&M after another until you feel like your stomach will burst. Letting the last bites of ice cream melt, so it will still fit in your belly.
Been there, done those things. But why? Why do we overeat, and why do we do stupid things to hide the fact? There’s only one answer: your mind. Every choice you make that results in overeating is a mental, one might say emotional, choice.
Many times it’s subconscious, like a habit of always cleaning your plate. Many times it’s conscious, when you choose to eat some treat you see right after eating dinner. Many times you turn your brain off and plunge fist-deep into the vat of Cheetos, painting your fingernails a bright, cheesy orange. But it’s always a choice, and it not easy to change these behaviors. As a matter of fact, it’s the hardest thing many overweight people will do.
It’s hard because it requires seeing yourself differently, and behaving that way until it becomes second nature. The only way to lose weight permanently is to change your behaviors permanently. For most people, it’s a question of changing many things: habits, conscious eating, paying attention to your food.
You can’t easily change all of these things at once, more likely you’ll be lucky if you change one a little bit, then work on the next one, then on to another. Repeat until you’re satisfied with yourself.
If you’re 200 pounds overweight, like I was, it’s hard to see yourself as thin. If you’re anorexic, you might see yourself as 200 pounds overweight without ever looking in the mirror. That’s the kind of trick your brain can play on you. But you will eventually see yourself first as you are, then as you are becoming.
The keys are persistence and patience. Persistently keep trying new things without judging the progress of the last things you tried. It all adds up to success. Patiently tell yourself that it’s not possible to recover in an instant, and frequently find new ways to acknowledge and honor your progress.
I may be currently anywhere from 120 to 160 pounds “overweight,” but I see it, and I acknowledge the journey I’ve taken to lose the more than 50 pounds I’ve lost so far. I can also see myself as thin, and see myself eating normally the rest of my life.
More importantly, I celebrate joyfully who I now am, who I am becoming, and who I once was. My own little circle of life, just like Simba in The Lion King.
