I know you’ve heard this saying before…it’s preached at weight loss meetings, posted on forums, added to profiles. It’s a popular saying that we read passively and forget about. Until you get it’s meaning. Then, your whole world may change.
I am admittedly a binge eater. But, I’m more like a 24-hour binge eater. I never stop. My weight keeps going up and up and up. I’ve tried dieting, and I can keep it up for about a week, and then I “fall off the wagon” for a few months until I get motivated to try again.
The problem is, the motivation doesn’t keep going after the diet starts. I guess I could try harder. I could meditate on my reasons every single day, and try to hold onto that thread that keeps me going.
And then I found it. My catch phrase. And it’s not new to me, I’ve read it countless times, but never got what it meant until a few days ago.
It was the afternoon, and I had just ate lunch and then gorged myself on a bag of chips. I was bending over to pick up a file off the floor and distinctly felt the unpleasantness of my ever-expanding gut hanging over the top of my pants. Immediately, the phrase came to mind - nothing tastes as good as thin feels.
I truly got it at that point. I am absolutely miserable feeling the way I feel in my clothes now. And those chips that I HAD to have? How long did the pleasure of those salty chips last? Thirty minutes max? If I was thin, how much pleasure would I feel? Everytime I put on an outfit for the day, everytime we have an event to go to and everything fits, everytime I bend over and nothing is hanging over my pants - the pleasure of being thin would last a lifetime.
So for the past few days, I’ve been repeating this mantra to myself whenever I feel like I need to overeat. And it’s working. I don’t just say the words, I feel them. I envision what pleasure I will feel when I don’t feel fat anymore. I haven’t felt the need to overeat since I’ve done this.
