Joy 66/82: Self-Trust

This morning Louise at Recover Your Joy posts about Jesse who has made a commitment to build a six-pack in the next 30 days.  Jesse has enough determination to reach his goal ... he proved that when he lost 100 pounds.  Over time 30 of those pounds slipped back ... now he is determined to lose those and gain the six-pack abs that seem to be one of the definitions of male beauty.  Louise finds inspiration and motivation in Jesse's journey.

I feel pulled in two opposite directions by the story.  Anytime I hear about someone who has successfully lost weight or reformed their physical presence, I am pulled into an "I should do that, too" mode.  It's familiar territory for me ... a life-long challenge with weight and a "never thin enough" mindset has been a major theme for me.  A zillion diets have passed through my life ... most took me on a roller coaster ride of success and failure and ultimately threw me off ... defeated.  Perhaps the worst result of this repeating pattern was the gradual erosion of my self-trust.  I became powerless to keep my commitments to myself.

Several years ago I renounced dieting and promised myself that I wouldn't do anything regarding food that I couldn't do forever.  I started making small changes and slowly began to lose weight.  Recently I've started testing myself again to see if I could keep my commitments.  However, I've become much more careful about the commitments I make and I've begun to craft them my them much more lovingly.  Right now I'm on day 66 of an 82-day commitment to post about the joys in my life.  The intent was to post every day but a few days were missed and I had to double up the next day.  That's ok.

Recently my eating has become more haphazard and less health focused.  So now I'm on a 30-day "real food" (no sugar, no dairy, no processed carbs) commitment ... however, the commitment doesn't mean that they are 30 *consecutive* days.  It's the holidays and I don't want to be a grinch so I'm shooting for 30 days within a 40-day period.  But, if it takes me 60 days to get my 30 days, that's ok too.

What this has made me realize is that I'm starting to trust myself again and I'm letting go of "perfection."  When I used to start a diet, I was filled with the notion that I could be perfect, do the diet perfectly.  As soon as I screwed up, I quit.  Now I just take a deep breath and realign myself with what I'm trying to do.

Who says you can't teach old dogs new tricks?