January 5, 2024

A very common goal and one that I’ve had throughout my life is “lose weight.” This one always felt particularly challenging for many reasons, but the feelings of sacrifice and deprivation were definitely a major obstacle for me. I think one of the reasons I’ve been more successful this year than I’ve ever been before is letting go of an all or nothing mentality. While I eat very low carb in general, if there is something outside of my usual diet that I want, I make an intentional choice. For example, I recently went out to dinner with my sister and my mother. Normally nachos don’t fit in my usual diet, but I made the intention choice to share a platter with my family. In the past, this would have led to shame and tempted me to go “fuck it, too late now” and also order soda, a cocktail, and a burger and desert. That evening, I enjoyed sharing my nachos, then ordered a lettuce wrapped and diet coke. My food choices were each intentional and I’m letting go of the value judgement of whether any of them were sinful or bad.

I’m definitely not judging anyone who does make those choices, but for me, I know that alcohol and carbs make my inflammation a lot worse, so if I eat a lot of carbs on one day, I know I’m going to be in a lot of pain the next.

In some ways, that clear cause and effect has made making choices that align with my goal of weight loss a lot easier. Seeing my body change or the number on the scale change can take weeks or months and often feels like more distress than reward, but not being in pain very clearly reinforces those decisions.

So a non-negotiable part of my life is my health and my mobility. Another huge trigger for my inflammation is stress. Again, a really clear and obvious cause and effect. So I’m no longer willing to hold onto stress and bottle it up. To me, that means feeling my feelings, which regularly means crying. Uhg, how embarrassing and frustrating.

I joked with a friend the other day that feeling my feelings is like vomiting. I’m terrified of it. I try to fight it. It sucks and is terrible while you are in the middle of it. But it is so much better out than in. I feel so much better after.

Today I think two things are becoming clearer to me as I write about sacrifice and what is non-negotiable: (1) perhaps the idea of sacrifice and deprivation is actually an obstacle to successfully setting and achieving goals and that prioritizing doesn’t have to be an all or nothing situation. (2) My health is my top priority. A lot of other factors influence my health. I’m easily stressed and this will be a very key thing to continue to get under control.