Welcome to Mellie's mind...

Where thoughts can be funny, can race at all hours of the day and night and can sometimes not make any sense!

Enjoy the ride!

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Goals....

I am working with a few ladies to help get them on track to a healthier life.  I asked them all to send me a list of their goals for the year.  These should and can be weight related, personal, family and career.  One of the ladies sent me this email about her goals:

"I have put this off for a few days.


You sent a text a few days back asking us to outline our goals.  

I didn't respond, because to be frank, I couldn't think of any. 

My goal came to my mind tonight.  I was once again, numbing my anger and pain with food.  I stuffed my fat face with one more cookie.  My goal...short or long term...is to like myself again.

I would like to say that I have a goal to be fit...that I would like to eat healthy, take care of my body, and exercise.  

I have no faith in those goals.  I start on a path of health...and am always derailed.  Some life stress occurs and I am back to food...my faithful friend.

Food doesn't judge me.  Food doesn't make me feel stupid.  Food doesn't make me feel unwanted or unloved.  Food doesn't make me feel unimportant.

Food doesn't really make me feel anything apart from numb.  

I am ashamed to admit this...but for the first time in my life...I really don't like myself.  Call it depression...call it bitching...whatever.  The truth is, I have given up on me and my body reflects that.  Hell, my life reflects that.

I tried to talk to my husband about some of these issues.  He rejects this kind of talk.  To be fair, there is a lot that I have been stuffing (apart from food) and it is probably irrational to assume that he is capable of absorbing my pain at once.

My fear...and probably my reality...is that he really doesn't care about my pain...me.  

I am tired.  Tired of whining to myself about my weight.  Tired of saying I am going to get up and exercise and then not putting my shoes, clothes and water by the bed so as to facilitate that happening.  I am tired of cookies and carbs of any sort.  Tired of folding my stomach over my pants.  Tired of knowing I look terrible.  Tired of shortening my life.

Tired of me.  

I am grateful to you for not giving up on me.  It gives me the tiniest spark of hope that if you think that I am capable of more than this...that I might be.

Here is what I would like to say are my goals.

I currently weight 171 pounds...yeah, pick yourself up off the floor.  I have decided to quit lying about myself.
I would like to weigh between 140 and 145.  I think that 150 is probably more doable.  I would like to leave heartburn behind.  I would like to eat healthy most of the time but slip a treat in when I feel like it...not when I feel compelled or stressed.  I would like to exercise 5 - 6 days a week...including healthy activities with my son or husband.  I would like to eat food that gave me energy, lifts my mood and awakens my spirit.  I would like to see myself fit...lean...not necessarily muscle-y but toned.  

I think that I could like that person.

Just not sure that I know how to get there."

My heart aches for my friend because I know how exactly she feels.  There was a time, when I first started my own journey in loosing weight that I felt these same emotions.
One thing I try and share with everyone who is starting a weight loss journey or a lifestyle change is that they have to take it one day at a time.  If you look at all that upsets you, all the hurts, all that you fear.. you will never start.
I feared the gym.  I made every excuse in the book with my hubby on reasons I did not want to go.  So I lived with those excuses but really focused on my food and just moving my body.  I knew I had to hit a certain caloric deficit each day and if I could do that without going to the gym and still eating good then I celebrated that.  If you take on too much it will overwhelm you and make you feel as if you can not do anything... so then you don't.
I have helped this person before but it has been different.  She needs extra care and extra time.  She needs to understand that we have to breakdown her goals into more obtainable little goals that we can do at a time.  Then as she starts to hit those smaller goals she will begin to understand that she can do this and she will feel better about it.
I am going to suggest to her that she do a vision wall as well.  Pictures are a wonderful and positve way to remind oursleves where we are headed.  I had one when I first started and it had great quotes on it as well.
My heart aches for my friend and for how she is feeling but I am excited too because even though she can not see it.. I know she is strong.  I know she has the will to do this and I know if I can just get her to understand that it's time to start caring for her that she will begin to see a new light of day and the world will not seem so heavy.
Make is a great day today!
~Mellie 
  

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