Trust

by yewenyi on Flickr

It’s been something of a challenging week, chez moi, and I’ve been dealing with a lot of thoughts that have come up.

First of all, I went to see the therapist on Monday. She’s recommended that I talk with someone who specializes more in my issues, but one thing she said really stuck with me.

She told me that whenever a person has a goal they want to reach, like weight loss for instance, one should ask oneself if they are ready, willing and able. Ready, meaning that they have all the information they need to achieve the goal; willing, in that they have decided that there are more pros than cons for achieving the goal; and able, meaning that they believe they can succeed.

In her opinion, from the hour we spent talking, I was lacking the third ingredient.

And I think she’s right. I’ve yo-yoed up and down so many times that I’m not sure I truly believe I can lose weight and keep it off any more. I don’t trust my own ability to lose weight successfully—never mind trusting myself to eat without a diet “plan” to guide me, or trust that my body would level out at a healthy weight if I listened to what it really needed and wanted to eat.

When I am feeling my most desperate, I cannot decide what to put in my mouth; every morsel, every bite of food is a land mine fraught with danger regardless of whether I’m considering organic strawberries or a bag of potato chips. All the data I’ve collected—the points values, the good carbs vs. bad carbs, the proteins and fiber that keep us full and the empty sugar that spikes our blood sugar—fights in my brain for supremacy, and I can’t make a decision until I’ve decided which program or plan I’m going to follow.

So when I decided I wasn’t going to follow a “program” or a “plan” anymore, perhaps you can see why I suddenly couldn’t move past that sticking point.

I’m not sure how to get to that “able” stage, but it’s definitely something to think about.