#Reverb12, Day 14: The Path That Brought You Here?

Throughout the month of December, I’ll be participating in #reverb12: celebrating the successes of 2012, honoring the challenges of 2012, and planting the seeds for a rich and rewarding 2013. December is the perfect time to reflect on the year that has passed and start to manifest dreams for the new year.

Day 14 – What was the most important thing you learned in 2012? How does this learning shape the path going forward?

 

I learned that I can succeed at my weight loss goals.  In September, after following Jenny Craig very strictly, I regained my willpower, saw success on the scale, and am confident in the knowledge that I will hit my mini weight loss goal (and all of the subsequent mini goals that will follow the first one).

This shapes my path because I will not be deterred, by myself or an injury or any other obstacle, real or imagined, that gets in my way.  My road to success is a clear one, but it’s taken many a windy, rocky detour to get here.  Now it’s just one foot in front of the other until the end.

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#WEverb11, Day 3: Learn

For the month of December, I’ll be participating in #WEverb11. Each day gives a new prompt, each of which is a chance to reflect and look forward.

December 3: Learn
What lesson did you learn in 2011 from “The School of Life” rather than a classroom?  Contributed by Julie Jordan Scott.

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This was a hard one for me because I feel like I learn a lot of little lessons about life on a daily basis, but if I had to choose one thing that really sticks out to me, I’d say that the biggest lesson I learned was why I turn to food for comfort.

I don’t want to get into all of the details, because those are really personal, even for this blog, where it seems that nothing is off limits.  Suffice it to say that after some very emotional situations in my mid-20s, I started to turn to food to soothe myself.  I ate to feel better, to numb the emotional pain.  I ate when I was bored because I didn’t have anything to do or anyone to do it with.  I ate because it became a  habit.  I ate when I was upset, stressed, happy.  I ate because I was “starting over again tomorrow.”  I ate because I’d just blown my diet anyway.  I ate and ate and ate.

And when you start out your life as an overweight child who comes from an Italian family who sees food as one of the great joys of life, using food as comfort only compounds the problem.  I started out overweight, but became obese because I had an unhealthy relationship with food.  And once I realized the WHY behind the unhealthy and disordered eating, I could finally control/stop it.

Digging deep enough into my past to finally get to the Ah-Ha moment wasn’t easy, but it was essential.  It’s what finally freed me from those demons of feeling so bad about my behavior after a night of overeating.  It’s what helped me recognize the signs so that I could turn the behavior around before it ever began.

I still get the urge to overeat from time to time, but I try to do something instead – write a blog post, check in on Facebook, call a friend, drink a bunch of water, or go and take a walk.  After I spend 15-20 minutes doing something else, the feeling subsides and I can move on.  Or, I get the emotion out and I can move on.  Either way, I don’t turn to food to comfort me. Or at least, not as much.  And if I do eat something, I am choosing healthy options rather than junk.  Huge progress.

Learning this lesson has been (is!!) essential to taking control of my weight loss and finally getting into some downward momentum on the scale, rather than just spinning my wheels as I’ve done for years.  I’m still working on my goals, but they’re getting easier to accomplish, step by step.

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If you’d like to join in on the daily writing prompts, go to WEverb11, sign up for the email notifications, and join us! Or follow along on Twitter using the #WEverb11 hashtag!

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