Gonna Make it This Time

May 2, 2009

I was having dinner with my husband last night and out of the blue he said to me, “I think you’re gonna make it this time.”   I had no clue what he was talking about.  He went on to explain that he thought I was really going to stay healthy and keep the weight off.  WOW!  It felt so good to know that my healthy living commitment was noticeable to others, especially my husband who has seen me tackle every diet known to man over the past 20 years (and fail at all of them).

After dinner, I spent some time thinking about what was really different this time, and it came down to one very simple idea.  I am not on a diet.  Instead I have a healthy new life.  I know it may sound like semantics but for me it is the difference between success and failure.  The next question I asked myself was “why is healthy living different than being on a diet?” What’s different, I discovered, is how I handle situations.

In the past, when I was on a diet, it was always a temporary thing. If you go “on” a diet, that implies that at some point you will be “off” the diet. While on the diet, I was always focused on what I could and could not eat and how many pounds I had lost that week. With a new focus on healthy living, I don’t worry about those things. Instead I focus on making good choices.

• Rather than count every single calorie, I look at the nutrient value of the food I eat and try to put together healthy meals.  I am still aware of the calorie count but i don’t plan my meals by calories alone.  Foods that are high in nutrient value are usually (not always) lower in calories so it really isn’t a big issue.
• I don’t exclude any food from my meal plan.  Movie popcorn is my one weakness and probably one of the worst foods I could eat.  Knowing that I can’t go to the movies without eating popcorn, I limit our movies to once every few months and then I enjoy the popcorn without guilt and adjust my meal plan to account for the treat.
• Because I know treats are included in my meal plan, I no longer feel deprived.  I don’t get the urge to binge like I used to — if I REALLY want the treat, I eat it - no regrets.  Funny enough, I hardly ever feel the need to splurge any more.  See Permission to Indulge for more on this topic.
• There is no timetable - I have the rest of my life to be healthy.  As long as I am doing my best every day to be healthy, it really doesn’t matter if the pounds come off in a month or six months.  When dieting, I was always striving to lose as much as I could, as fast as I could and then I would go off the diet (and gain it all back).

I could go on and on with examples, but you get the idea.  A healthy lifestyle means doing your best every day and some days will be better than others.  It’s not about fads, gimmicks, restrictive diets, hours a day in the gym — it’s about making choices that you know are best for your body and learning how to make allowances for special occasions, slips, or setbacks without feeling like a failure.

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