Doing the Same Thing . . . Differently

I have been a Weight Watchers member many times, occasionally experiencing temporary success, but never achieving my goal weight or maintaining any kind of weight loss. Despite the fact that things didn’t work out for me in the past with the program, I think they could in the future. If I were to do the same thing differently.

The same thing: Weight Watchers.

But differently:

• Eating more “real” food and less processed food—but without getting too militant right off the bat. Note: This doesn’t mean I have to force myself to love salads.
• Being kinder to myself at my current weight, before even a single ounce is lost.
• Bringing physical activity into the circle of weight-loss strategies early on, rather than waiting. It helps my mood, which in turn keeps me more positive about the whole process.
• Trying to be less judgmental when I’m sitting there in the Weight Watchers meetings; offering my opinion (civilly) if I disagree with something, rather than stewing silently in the back of the room.
• Having a little more faith. I don’t know if this means returning to some kind of religious or spiritual practice, but I think it does mean praying (even if I’m just talking to myself). It’s a time to calm myself and focus intentions.
• Keeping my food log in a physical notebook, rather than online. Although the online WW tools are invaluable, different strokes work for different folks, and in my case something about having that tangible food journal in my purse might make a positive difference.

Have you ever done “the same thing differently,” and achieved positive results?

The Spinach Eater

In those hazy pre-memory days back when I was a toddler, evidently I used to eat two bowls of Luby’s spinach in a single sitting. That’s right: when having seconds, I went for the mounds of green vegetables, not the macaroni or the biscuits or the fried fish sticks or the jello with whipped cream.

I hear these stories about my spinach predilection, and I wonder if my family isn’t mistaken, somehow. Because by the time I was nine or so, I had a pronounced sweet tooth, and although I didn’t veer far above a normal weight until my late twenties, I feel that my sugary preoccupation has defined my whole life in many ways.

Back to the spinach. Little-kid-me was allowed to choose what she desired from that cafeteria line, and she choose lots of spinach. It wasn’t a punishment. It was just what I wanted. So simple. Can life become that simple again?

The spinach story reminds me that this new blog is about more than weight loss. Yes, I dream of rediscovering the me buried beneath the extra layers of fat. But I also ache for a simple time that I can’t even remember: before depression, before the decades of bad food habits, before seemingly innocuous secrets and self-shaming and nihilistic oh-why-bother disgust.

I believe I can change. I believe I am worth it, and that inside of me there still lurks a spinach-craving little kid who is capable of loving herself and others wholeheartedly.