March 27th, 2018 I Know, I Know
Today: I maintained the integrity of my maintenance calorie budget, I remained refined sugar-free, I met my daily water goal, and I stayed well connected with good support.
I'm republishing a guest post from May of last year written by my friend Jordan Burgess.
I think I've had one other guest post in the history of this blog. I asked for his permission to republish it here. It's powerful stuff!
Thank you, Jordan!
"I Know" by Jordan Burgess (Listen to Jordan's interview on episode 13 of Transformation Planet)
"I know"- those words almost killed me.
For years, in fact, most of my adult life, friends, family, and even concerned strangers would try and talk to me about my weight.
Die young, orphaned kids, bad health, diabetes, cancer, no career prospects, and on and on. "I know" was the only response I could muster. And I did know.
What I didn't realize until later was that what I should have said is "I don't know how to stop." My "I know" was really a misplaced cry for help.
I "knew" how to lose weight. For the most part, everyone knows. You simply expend more energy than you consume....every 5th grader knows that, right?
And I knew it too. I just needed to "do" it. Funny how far apart the "knowing" and "doing" were. All that and the results were less than nothing. Literally, I would try and GAIN weight.
The thing that worked for me is I had to have a really honest conversation with myself. Not necessarily about what foods I ate (although that was a part of the conversation), but about why all that knowledge couldn't produce any results. It boiled down to one simple phrase "If I could of, I would of."
I found myself able to exert enormous discipline and willpower in almost every other area of my life, except food. Try as I may, I could never fully tame the compulsion to keep eating things that I knew I shouldn't be in amounts that I shouldn't be eating.
I finally admitted that I would not be able to beat this, not on my own. That's when there was a new plan. Not one of me doing all the work, but more of following simple directions and letting go of the things that I thought I needed. Obviously, those were not working.
If you had told me that I could lose 230 pounds in a year by eating over 2000 calories a day I would have said "impossible."
This honesty and willingness to step outside of my own thinking is what has produced results for me.
Everybody is different. But I would encourage you to ask. If you find yourself time and time again not getting the results you want or expect, then have an honest conversation with yourself. I've been fortunate enough to meet several people on my own journey with lasting recovery. They all have varied food and exercise plans, but the one thing they all have in common is that they are completely honest with themselves.
People will sometimes approach me about just having "one of this" or "one of that" when it comes to food. "All things in moderation," they say. I almost always respond that I "am on a plan of abstinence, not moderation."
Moderation does not work for me, especially when it comes to food. One thing I had to learn about me is that I had to be abstinent from certain things with a happy heart.
For example- I love ice cream- Blue Bell ice cream is my absolute favorite. When I discovered ice cream was probably my #1 trigger food I determined I could not have it. Not a single bite, ever again- because if I started - I didn't know if I could stop. Over time I would get resentful- whenever I saw someone else eating it, or when a new flavor came out. I realized this resentment was poisoning my plan. I was looking at it the wrong way.
What I was getting was much more valuable than what I was giving up.
Once I flipped that perspective- then I was ready to embrace a food plan that abstained from anything and everything that triggered me.
I just thought I'd throw out some thoughts tonight. Hope you are all well.
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Thank you, Jordan!
Wow.
Thank you for reading and your continued support,
Strength,
Sean
