In the Beck Book one step is to write down why you want to lose weight/live a healthy lifestyle. She calls them Advantage Response Cards (ARC). I have my list as I'm sure others have theirs. We are supposed to review them often and remind ourselves WHY we want to be thinner.
Here are mine.
1) Be a health example for my children.
2) Not develop gestational diabetes again when/if I get pregnant again.
3) Feel better about my body
4) Live a long time, long enough to see my grandchildren grow up.
5) To accomplish something BIG!
6) To win the battle of the bulge!
7) To be more healthy
8) To break family history
9) My clothes will fit better
10) To feel better in my clothes
11) To be a smaller size
12) To lose my tummy
So I am trying to retrain my brain to think like a thin person. I keep thinking there is something I am blocking. Some repressed memory that will make my weight issues all make sense to me. Something I am not realizing, other than I seek comfort in food. One think I do know is I have it in my genes.
My Dad was overweight all his life. In my lifetime he average about 320 lbs and was 6 foot 4 inches tall. I remember as a child my parents talking about he once weighed 400 lbs, his heaviest. He has his stomach stapled, something like the bypass surgeries you hear so much about now. He busted his staples by over eating.
He died at 52, when I was only 21 years old. I know some of my food issues go back to his death, but not all of them. I gained 30 lbs the year after his death and gained another 20 the following years. Morbid obesity was listed on his birth certificate. I never saw him that way. I loved my Daddy and that was it...no matter what his size. I never thought of him as MORBIDLY obese, but that's what is said. I wonder if I knew then, what I know now, could I have helped him? Could I have been supportive and encouraging of his weight loss goals? I think I would have.
My Mom was just 98 lbs when she got married at 18. She gained her weight slowly, about 10 lbs with each pregnancy (3 children) until at 38 she had a hysterectomy (sp?). Then her hormones were out of whack and it took more and more effort to keep weight off. Plus she was married to a man that loved to eat. She the pounds kept coming. She is now about a size 18 and she doesn't like it either. But she has health issues now that make it even harder to lose the weight. I love my mom, but that is why I want to start doing something now. So I can set the habits in place before it gets harder and harder and harder, because Goodness knows it is hard enough right now.
Stella Virgin
3 years ago
