new year

Hope you enjoy this blog from Blaire Palmer.

 

Losing the pounds

 

Like about 90% of the human population at this time of year, I am on a diet. This is unusual for me. For many years I kept very fit and didn’t have to worry about what I ate. Then I had a baby and had the perfect excuse for a little baby weight which didn’t bother me until about 6 months ago when I realised fewer and fewer of my clothes fit me. Christmas broke the bank (in terms of lbs if not £s) and I realised, without a small amount of dread, that IT WAS TIME.

 

I realise that setting a weight loss goal isn’t in the same league as becoming a stand up comedian or a jockey in a year. But I think it represents the kinds of goals most of us set on a regular basis and fail to achieve fully.

 

For one thing, there is not definite end to it. Yes, there will be a day when I reach my target but unless I maintain the disciplines I have been following until that point (Rule 9), I will soon find myself heading for the baggier pants again. If your goal is to climb Kilimanjaro and you achieve it, no one can ever take that away from you. You will always be someone who achieved that. Weight loss, though, is rather meaningless unless you constantly work to keep the weight off.

 

The Tiger has some fun with this because he has all sorts of excuses which put you off going for the goal with full commitment. He says “What’s the point? You will just put it back on again,” and “Do you really want to be on a diet for the rest of your life?”

 

Then there is the fact that weight loss is a controversial issue and there will be many well-meaning people out there who try to put you off. You have to remember there is no safety in numbers (Rule 6) when your friends say “But you look lovely as you are” and “This one piece of cake won’t kill you”.

 

Weight loss is also the archetypal goal because it is on-going and becomes boring very quickly. By yesterday evening I was yearning for a plate of cheese and crackers and a hot chocolate. By the way, these are not things I usually have of an evening. But knowing I couldn’t triggered my Tigers to come out to play, tempting me with delights which, luckily, were not in the house. (If they had been I am not convinced I could have controlled myself).

 

Losing weight requires you to have continual conversations with yourself as you counter every argument the Tiger presents to convince you to break your resolution (Rule 4, It’s all in the mind). My Tiger says “You don’t need to be this strict because you don’t have that much weight to lose”, and “You should be allowed to eat whatever you want”. I have to respond with “I want to succeed so I need to follow the plan” and “No one is forcing me to do this. I want to feel fitter and lighter” etc. etc. etc.

 

Most of you will have heard the saying “The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”. It is this saying which is proving most powerful as I battle my Tigers. It is one of the reasons I joined a slimming club for the first time in my life, on the basis that “The tools for taming Tigers are all around you”. Over the last six months my efforts to do this on my own have been unsuccessful. I knew that if I was serious I needed to do something different this time. The group and the guidelines they set out in their plan should provide me with the disciplines, the support and a focus on my direction as I attend my weekly meetings, which I was lacking before.

 

So far (Day 6) it has been very valuable to have access to the Ten Rules not only because of the guidance they provide for me but because their very existence proves that the games my Tiger is playing with me are nothing more than that – games. The Ten Rules would not exist if most people found it easy to change their behaviour and their ways of thinking. The fact that they do exist is powerful evidence for the fact that we all find such journeys – no matter how everyday and common like diets or how dramatic and impressive like, for instance, running your first marathon – difficult and lined with Tigers.

 

If any of you are wondering what the “Act boldly” part of this weight loss plan is, by the way, it is telling you! Once you’ve told a few thousand people that you are going to lose weight, the pressure is really on to achieve it. Thanks for being there to make it even harder to turn back!  

 

Now it’s over to you…