Category: Deep thoughts

“Too much freedom makes me feel out of control”

Can you relate? We THINK we just want someone to tell us what to do. To set rules and limits for us to obey. Which works…until it doesn’t.

We confuse having someone else making all the decisions with being “in control.” Having the freedom to make choices (for better or worse) feels scary…at first.

But hear this: When you have no freedom, you are not in control. Having freedom is what puts you in control.

We’ve been talking lately about the many choices that we get to make about what, whether, and how much to eat, and working on making these choices more intentional.  But I want to caution you against framing these choices in terms of Want vs. Should.

“I really WANT to have a bowl of ice cream. But I SHOULD say no.”

This is a lose-lose scenario!   If you give in and have what you want, you feel bad for not doing what you should.  And if you stick to your guns and do what you should, you don’t get to have what you want.
If this is how you are setting up your choices, your whole day becomes a depressing and exhausting series of decisions that either lead to guilt or deprivation.  Who wants to live like that?

As you’re considering what to choose, avoid loaded words like want, need, should, and shouldn’t. Focus instead on the fact that you have options, and that each option has pros and cons.

“I could have a bowl of ice cream. Or I could have a piece of fruit instead.”

“I can have ice cream tonight or I can look forward to that as a treat at the end of the week.”

“I can have two scoops or I can have one scoop.”

“I could eat ice cream until I feel better or I could take a walk and see if I can find a way through this feeling that doesn’t move me away from my goals.”

Consider what you get from each.  How much and what kind of satisfaction or pleasure would you get? How long will that last? (5 minutes? 10?) How will you feel after that? (Stronger? Calmer? Regretful?) How long will THAT feeling last? (A day? A Lifetime?)

Even the difference between saying “I get to make so many choices every day!” instead of “I have to make so many choices every day” can be so empowering.

This week, I invite you listen to your self-talk a little more carefully.  Instead of setting yourself up for a lose/lose situation, see if you can frame your choices in terms of which presents the more meaningful win.

It’s easy to blame a lack of motivation for our lack of progress. But maybe this is a bit of an excuse. Especially if we are nurturing a fantasy that being motivated to change means that change will be effortless. It won’t be.

Finding your motivation isn’t like attaching a motor to your bike so that you can zoom up a hill without even pedaling. It’s more like finding a lower gear on your bike that makes the pedals a bit easier to push when you hit that hill. But pedaling is still required.

Being motivated doesn’t actually spare you the need to take action. It just makes taking (consistent) action a little easier.

See also:  https://member.weighless.life/being-willing-to-do-what-it-takes/

One reason that diets don’t work is that they rely too much on willpower.

Willpower is like a muscle: it can get fatigued.

In the Weighless program, we don’t count on willpower as the main ingredient for success. Instead, we develop an entire suite of strategies to keep us moving in the right direction even when our willpower fails.

Here are three tips for relying on strategies other than willpower to make healthy changes.

1. Use positive redirection. 

When we’re trying to make healthy changes, we often focus exclusively on what we need to stop eating – fast food, candy, soda, chips.

When we instead of focus on what we want to eat more of, our brains relax a bit and we feel less deprived.

Instead of swearing off dessert, why not splurge on some particularly luscious fruit to enjoy after dinner? Instead of forking your way through a boring pile of lettuce and cucumbers, make your lunchtime salad something to look forward to by topping it with some fresh avocado or a few shrimp. If you’re trying to wean yourself off that nightly glass of wine, be sure to have some sparkling water on hand to sip on instead. Put it in a nice glass and garnish it with a sprig of fresh mint, dash of bitters, or wedge of lime.

Using positive redirection is a lot more fun than white-knuckling your way through a diet that requires a ton of willpower.

2. Have a plan.

It’s a lot easier to stick to your healthy eating plan if you actually have a plan! It’s easy to set the intention in the morning of “eating healthy” that day – but then things can quickly go downhill when you impulsively order a giant muffin with your coffee, work through lunch, and order pizza for dinner because you’re starving when you get home.

Tonight, take a minute to think about your schedule for tomorrow and plan what you’ll eat. Pack a salad or container of soup to take for lunch, thaw some chicken to cook for dinner. Or, if cooking isn’t your thing, decide in advance where you’ll order lunch and what you’ll have, and where you’ll pick up dinner.  You’ll almost certainly make better choices ahead of time than you will in the heat of the moment.

3. Keep it simple.

For some reason, when we make up our mind to lose weight or get in shape, we’re often attracted to complicated regimens that have lots of very specific rules and requirements. Subconsciously, we seem to believe that the more elaborate the program — and the bigger the departure from our current habits — the more likely it is to be the one that finally works.

This is a trap!

The bigger the departure from our normal routine, the more likely we are to crash and burn.

In the Weighless Program, we start where we are and make small, sustainable changes to our routines and behaviors, gradually building the lifestyle and habits that lead to weighing less. We suggest you take the same approach!!

One of our members recently shared a Weighless victory… followed by a stumble that many of us know all too well.  Do you recognize this pattern?

“I just got back from a trip to New Orleans. The last time we went it was a  disaster of gluttony and excess. I gained weight, and also felt horrible. This time, I vowed, would be different. I posted notes saying QUALITY NOT QUANTITY all over my house for the week before we left.  On the trip, I ate everything I wanted to but small amounts of the less healthy stuff and I felt fantastic when we got back. Even better, I weighed the same when we got home as when I left. I was feeling very proud of myself!

Can you relate?  I know I can!

Last year, for example, I spent a month producing two podcasts a week instead of my usual one. It was an intense push. But I was really motivated. I really wanted to create a bit of a buffer for myself so that if something came up (a professional opportunity, a family emergency, whatever) I would have more flexibility.

And I succeeded in getting myself four weeks ahead!  But then, over the course of the next three months, I proceeded to blow my lead.  A week would somehow slip by without me recording a new podcast.  Not because something important came up.  Simply because my vision (and therefore my plan) for success only extended to getting ahead. It didn’t include staying ahead.

Don’t blow your lead

As any gymnast or ice skater will tell you, training for (and visualizing) the jump always includes training for the landing.

I had a solid plan for how I was going to research, write, and record two podcasts a week.  I scheduled work sessions into my calendar and I stuck to them. Triple Salchow! The problem was that I failed to make any schedule for the weeks that followed.  As a result, I failed to stick the landing.

So let’s say you set an intention to get through the holidays or a vacation without gaining weight. (In weeks 20 and 46, we teach specific strategies for enjoying holidays, vacations, and special occasions without sacrificing your progress.) You put together your plan. You execute it like a champ.

You’ve done the triple salchow. Now all you need to do is stick the landing.

If you see the last day of your vacation or a holiday season or crossing the finish line of that race as the end of your “challenge,” it’s easy for things to fall apart in the aftermath.

Instead, as you plan to navigate the challenge, include the week after the trip or event in that vision.  Have a couple of healthy meals in the freezer so that you have good options available when you get back.  Get out your calendar and schedule in some exercise for the week after you get home.  Make sure you get back into the rhythm of your regular healthy habits. Stick that landing!

What challenges or goals are you planning for right now? What’s the plan for sticking the landing?

Few of us will travel a straight path to weighing less. There will be false starts, unplanned detours, stalled engines, and dead ends. But the answer is not to start over–only this time “do it right.”

Those false starts and dead ends are all part of the learning. The program is not a year long because that’s how long it should take to attain your ideal weight. The program is a year long to allow time for lots of failure.

We do not achieve success when we put sufficient distance between ourselves and our failures. We achieve success when we learn to bring our failures close,  examine them with clear eyed compassion, learn what we can from them, and use them as fuel for future growth.