Love Life, No Matter Where You're At!

Something I wrote in 2014:

Just like my hair colour, my weight has been all over the map during the last few years. I've spent [literally] years fixated and obsessed with it. I've lived with a binge eating disorder that I felt totally helpless to overcome. I've been very thin and very restrictive with my calories. I've calorie-counted and weighed and measured everything I ate. I've done a fitness show, gained 45 lb in a year afterwards, lost it all, had a baby, and lost it all again.

What have I learned in all this yo-yo'ing? That my weight is simply a reflection of my actions and habits in any specific season in my life. It doesn't define me. I was 170 lb when I met my husband, and he didn't even notice. I was 130 lb and had just as much fun with my friends as I did at 160. I was 9 months pregnant and enjoying life and food. I was 150 lb and miserable. I was 130 lb and miserable. The way my body actually looked made no difference to my quality of life. It was all my mindset. My friends and family didn't mind when I lost or gained weight - they didn't love me any more or less.

Other than the people in my life, the only constant has been the feeling of freedom I lived with when I was making good, healthy choices. Not restrictive, "can't"-based choices. Not eating all the sugar that crossed my path though, either. When I make choices that leave me energized and thinking clearly, of course my quality of life is higher than when I bog down my system with refined junk.

Eating chocolate is NOT a moral issue. All the guilt does is cripple me, and generally make me eat more than I would if everything was permissible. I'm enjoying a life now where I make mindful decisions based on my goals and priorities.

When I wasn't taking ownership for my actions, I just felt enslaved. I believe YES, I can do and eat whatever I want. But I need to make sure it's actually what I want, and I'm not just falling prey to the habits of friends, family members, or the general Canadian population and their baconcheesechipspastabrownie habits - not to mention the convenience of having restaurants on every corner in the town I live in!

All things are lawful for me but not all things are good for me to do. This is what 1 Corinthians 6:12 says, and I believe the applications are broad.

Do you feel GOOD and FREE and ALIVE when you're focusing on your waistline that's not quite as small as you'd like? How about when you're focusing on the chocolate? When you're thinking more about the Christmas baking around you than the people you're with? Watch that you're not being mastered by the call of the food, the peer pressure of your family, or your thoughts. If this is happening, your power needs to be taken back, and it's up to you.

Step back and see your decisions from how you'll feel about them tomorrow when the cheesecake is no longer talking to you - will it have helped make the experience/party/family time more enjoyable, or will it actually just distract from where your focus could be? The answer could be either (sometimes the food is truly part of fellowshipping with the people you love). Like any addiction, we have to see past the beckoning of the sugar to what's really going on underneath and motivating our actions.

I'm at a place now where I am diligently keeping my mindset as follows: "I will NOT stress about food. I've done enough of that for a lifetime. I am allowed to have whatever I want. I love exercise, and I love feeling good, so I want to eat in order to support those things."

This is enabling me to enjoy family get-togethers, as well as make gains in the gym. I'm not happy when I'm not training hard, so I am finding a balance that allows me to do that and have the body I want, without the obsessed mindset that used to accompany fitness progress. My mindset and the things I'm learning about nutrition are allowing me to listen to my body and not count calories. They're allowing me to think a lot more clearly about the things that matter.

But, with the deeply engrained habits I have of swinging between perfectionistic dieting and all-out recklessness, it's a balancing act, for sure. I don't achieve it perfectly every day.

It's a struggle. But it's about learning to take thoughts captive and not let them control me. Being mindful of what comes across the screen of my mind, and if it doesn't help me, I kick it out. My thoughts do not have to master me.

You can't stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can stop them from nesting in your hair, as the saying goes. Thoughts of guilt, anxiety, defeat, fat, addiction, insecurity - they cross all of our minds. But we can prevent them from taking root if we counter them with the truth.

Why are so many of us convinced that we are "the out of shape one," (or the one that isn't as funny, isn't as pretty, isn't as smart) etc., when in fact we are just like everyone else, with a different blend of strengths and weaknesses? We need to get rid of the assumption that we are the less awesome one in our group of friends and think of ourselves AT LEAST as highly as we think of them, so that we can be realistic, stop putting ourselves down, and enjoy our lives. We don't need to live in fear of being different, being not enough, being too much, missing out, standing out. Let go of the fear.

Stepping outside of my thoughts and talking back to them is keeping any old habits from overtaking me again.

Choose your thoughts.

Choose your priorities.

Choose your health.

Choose your relationships.

Choose your actions.

Be mindful.

Choose.