Simple, But Not Easy
It’s January, so weight loss programs are popping everywhere. Even one of my favorite yoga teachers, much to my disappointment, is promoting his new “yoga for weight loss” approach. I would offer my own system for weight management, but I’m guessing most people would dismiss my ideas as irrelevant since they don’t involve reducing calories, the latest diet fad (this one will definitely be the one that works!) or eliminating entire food groups. My beliefs about weight loss and weight management are quite simple, yet not easy to implement. I believe that the path to a healthy relationship with food and eating comes from eating when we are hungry, not eating when we are not hungry, and maximizing the nutritional content and pleasure in our food intake so we feel satisfied and satiated. This is where I figure I will lose most folks - if I could figure out how to not eat when I’m not hungry, I wouldn’t have to struggle with my weight! Right?! Eat nutritious foods when you’re hungry. Don’t eat when you’re not hungry. Simple, but not easy.
The not-so-easy method for accomplishing any personal goal, including weight management, seems to involve four qualities that I refer to as “internal muscles”: commitment, discipline, self- compassion and self-love. I think of these as muscles because we need to exercise them in order to strengthen them. We need to strengthen them in order to do the things we “know we should do” or want to accomplish, but can’t quite find the motivation to proceed - the heavy lifting of resisting temptation and the power to make choices that will move us forward toward our goals.
The commitment muscle sets the direction in which we want to go. This muscle uses language like “I will,” “I can,” “I want,” and “I need.” We can become even more clear about our direction by stating, “I am committed to …” Notice how the change in language elevates the intention to a new level of seriousness. It’s like I”m telling myself that I really mean business! For the new year, I had set an intention to begin a writing practice, something I had expressed a desire to do for many years. I have thought about writing, talked about writing, intended to sign up for a writing course - I’ve done everything except actually sit down in a chair and write! We humans love to give ourselves reasons (AKA excuses) why this isn’t a good time or that will be a better time. With the last of my three boys out of the nest, 2020 finally seemed like a good time to commit to writing. In other words, I had run out of excuses! So last Sunday evening, as my husband prepared to watch football, I told myself that I would write for a few hours. I sat down and wrote four sentences. My brother called and I chatted with him for half an hour. Then my friends called and asked if we wanted to join them for a movie. I agreed to go, knowing it would mean sacrificing the time I had set aside for writing. What happened to my commitment? Ah, my discipline muscle wasn’t strong enough to support my commitment in that moment. The role of the discipline muscle is to keep us on track with our intention by overriding the temptation to buy into an excuse. We can strengthen our discipline muscles the same way we empower our biceps, by using them to resist weight that is heavy enough to take us out of our comfort zone. Just as lifting 2 pound weights every day will never increase our arm strength, our discipline muscles will only get stronger when we use them to resist increasingly tempting situations that threaten to detour us from our commitment. So even though I said I wanted to write, my discipline and commitment weren’t strong enough to override the pull to socialize. I blew off my writing time and felt annoyed at myself for doing so. We perfectly imperfect humans make choices like this all the time. How I respond to my choice will make all the difference in the world.
This is where the self-compassion muscle comes in. It’s important to keep in mind that any “muscle” we continue to use will maintain or increase its strength. The opposite is also true, which is how our physical muscles atrophy. The question I must ask myself once I recognize that I have blown off my writing time is: Which muscle do I want to strengthen in this moment? Will I become frustrated (thereby strengthening my internal frustration muscle)? Will I be self- critical (strengthening my inner critic voice muscle)? Will I give myself a full pass with a lame excuse (strengthening my excuse-making muscles)? Alternatively, will I strengthen my self- compassion muscle? If you don’t know what that muscle does, it gives me permission to be human; allows me to acknowledge, without shaming myself, that I didn’t act consistently with my commitment; helps me notice that I felt annoyed at myself for that choice (pause to recognize that this was a choice that I alone made) and reminds me that I can make a different choice next time, preferably one that doesn’t lead to me feeling annoyed at myself. Here’s where the self-love muscle gets put into play. Each time I allow myself to override my wants, needs and commitments, I will most likely feel annoyed. Feeling annoyed doesn’t feel good in my body. However, this feeling is extremely valuable in helping me identify those moments when I have chosen to ignore my want, need or commitment. Feeling unpleasantly annoyed at myself, as tempting as it is to numb or avoid, is a red flag alerting me to a situation that requires my attention, to a decision in which I have not acted lovingly towards myself. Loving myself means that I make choices that are consistent with my wants, needs and commitments to myself. The more I make choices that are in alignment with what I require and desire, the less annoyed I will feel with myself and with others. When we rush to numb or avoid those feelings of annoyance, rather than recognizing them as signals, we miss the opportunity to work on strengthening our self-love muscles.
If these scenarios seem familiar to you, let’s take it one step further to understand how this very natural, human pattern plays out with food and eating. I’ve noticed that the more annoyed I am at myself, the more I tend to eat when I’m not hungry, to use food to soothe or numb those extremely uncomfortable feelings of impatience, disappointment and frustration. If we think about food this way, we’re really talking about a form of betrayal. When I chose to go to the movies instead of writing, I betrayed my desire and commitment to write; I betrayed my longing to express myself. Although it’s always tempting to blame the husband, mother, kid or fill-in-the- blank-other-person or situation, a part of me knows that I made the choice to abandon my commitment, want or need. It’s really interesting to consider what happens next. In the absence of heightened awareness and adequate skills, I repeat the pattern of betrayal through food. How does that work? In our culture, food is so readily accessible that it is really easy to “act out” our feelings with our eating behaviors. If I’m mad at myself for abandoning my commitment to write, I can express that anger by feeding myself when I’m not hungry, eating food that I know will not sit well in my body, or both. Not so coincidentally, the feelings around this eating style mirror my original feelings: frustration and disappointment that I have let myself down. Usually, the focus becomes the food and eating patterns rather than the underlying emotional set-up that led to our food choices. Often, we are unaware that we’ve been set up - we are so conditioned to talk and think about food and eating. Most of us don’t even recognize that we went into the pantry feeling annoyed or frustrated. We seem to notice those feelings only after we come out of the pantry - after we’ve eaten a sleeve of Oreos or a bar of chocolate. The feelings get attached to the food and we forget how we got there in the first place. Here’s the good news: Once I am able to recognize that I am annoyed at myself for abandoning my commitment, I don’t need to act out those feelings with food. I am able to reset my commitment and address the underlying issue of my own self-betrayal with a balance of accountability and compassion. For me, that meant I didn’t have to finish the half pint of ice cream in my freezer. This was a choice that I was able to make only because I (1) recognized that I had betrayed my own wants and commitments, (2) noticed that my body wasn’t enjoying the feelings of annoyance that were raised by that betrayal, (3) realized the feelings of annoyance were my body’s way of letting me know I had chosen to move away from my commitment rather than towards it; (4) responded with compassion to my imperfect choice and (5) set an intention to choose differently next time as an act of self-love. That means I am back on track for another go at writing, for however long I sit before my next opportunity arises to strengthen those commitment, discipline, self-compassion and self-love muscles - I’m guessing it wont take long!