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June 25, 2007

His name is Peter

One of my favorite blogs stirred up a little controversy today. Very little, so I’m not even going to go into it, but I’ve never seen heated comments in response to her before. Anywhoo, someone struck such a cord with me with their comment I almost fell in love. He said so eloquently what I’ve been thinking and wanting to mention here.

This really explains me and makes me feel better. I keep re-reading it. I hope he doesn’t mind if I post his thoughts here to share them. I really hope he happens across here and shares more insight.

After the birth of my daughter 3.5 years ago I gained more weight than I ever have in my life. When I embarked on the journey to lose it everything in my life was aligned for success. My stay at home husband took care of my daughter, did the laundry, and prepared my meals. And I was only working part time. I had a lot of time to workout and dedicate to writing this blog. The high from all the endorphins of my new found energy and weight loss convinced me that I was never going to go back.

Then suddenly everything changed. I’ve had a chaotic year. Amidst this chaos I’m trying to find a new routine, a recipe for success that fits within my new circumstances. I haven’t reverted back to old ways or to who I was at any previous stage of my life. I just need to find what is going to work for me now to get me where I want to be.

I remain Hopeful.

Here’s what Peter wrote that I love and think is so true.

As you know already, what determines weight-loss success is not just a blossoming of inner gumption. It's not a raw Triumph of the Will, in other words, so much as it is a whole, fairly undramatic congeries of factors, often environmental as well as internal, that collectively make it possible to first develop a new set of habits, and then to stay uninterruptedly within the groove of those new habits long enough to pay down your calorie surplus.

If you can keep from being interrupted in your good habits, you'll keep off the weight that you've lost. If you are interrupted in them by illness, injury, unhappiness, the influence of another person, forgetfulness, a different job, bad weather, a child, or the like--and such changes are common in many lives, at least over the medium term--you'll have to work at coming up with more new habits that can take account of that changed life situation.

If you can stick to a routine--almost any routine, really--you can lose weight, since the helpful behaviors will become habitual. It's just that you also need to be able to arrive at other, entirely new routines as your circumstances change. And this is where many people stumble, at least a little.

In other words, willing your own sense of urgency not to fade is necessary, but probably not sufficient.

Posted by hopeful @ June 25, 2007 10:59 PM