Make Peace With What Is.

                                                   
This past couple of months I've been extra busy with the details of life, but this weekend, I've finally found some quiet time to reflect on my personal weight-loss and maintenance goals and what behavior I'm willing to choose in order to achieve them.

 Today I did some catch-up reading at some of the forums I frequent, and one Thread particularly interested me. It is the journal of an intelligent and insightful person who has a great deal of difficulty with Denial. During the past several years I've watched as Flashes of Truth break through that Denial. Unfortunately, shortly after I see a Flash, each time it becomes lost again, buried in that Denial Abyss.   I feel certain that if this person could just retain those Truths for any length of time, she would achieve the weight-loss she so desperately hopes for.

One such Flash of Truth was a statement which was buried within her last month's posts:

"My goal has not been to lose weight or to eat less food,
it has been to desire to eat less food."

In essence, she describes an enormous stumbling block that most dieters encounter. Practically everyone with a weight problem would …. more than anything … like to rid ourselves of the DESIRE to overeat. For, of course, if that DESIRE left us, we would eat only the amounts and kinds of food that we need to sustain the body size we wish to have.

However, to actually WANT less food than the body needs to sustain it's current weight, is a goal that is ultimately impossible for almost anyone to achieve. Our bodies are designed to want to retain and store fat, and each of us has a built-in starvation response that triggers a desire to eat more whenever weight leaves our bodies. If that desire ever does leaves us…. it won't happen until AFTER our bodies have achieved weight-loss and adapted to that normal weight condition.

This is like an alcoholic saying that when they stop wanting to drink, they will quit drinking. Will never happen. First you quit… then, after years of not drinking, perhaps the desire to drink will also leave.

Another forum member did respond to her with the quote:

"Make peace with what is, and look to where you want to be."

 Acceptance wisdom.

Our overeating desire is something we cannot change, so it needs to be Accepted.
Our overeating behavior is something we can change, so we need the Courage to Change it.