To Get What You Want

One of my friends who recently restarted on this program told me that she's realized that "To get what you've never got, you've got to do what you've never done."  I love that!

Up until many of us started on Take Shape for Life, we got what we DIDN'T want by doing what we've always done.  Especially for those of us who are emotional eaters, we spent years (perhaps our entire lives) using food as our automatic go-to for any and every emotional thing in our lives.  Happy?   Something to celebrate?  Upset?  Stressed?  Our response was always to put food in our mouths, and not just any food, but usually the wrong kinds of food in large quantities.  (I don't know about you, but when I was running to food to meet my emotional needs, I never once ran to the vegetable crisper and pulled out a bunch of celery . . . )

To get what we've never had, or what we haven't had in a long time, we have to do things we've never done.  If we're recovering emotional eaters, we have to find other, healthier ways to deal with the stuff of life.  If we've been gourmet cooks, we will have to find healthier ways to prepare foods and may need to permanently close the cover on some of our fat/carb/calorie-laden recipes.  If we've always been big eaters, we will have to learn how to eat in proper portions.  If we've been meal-skippers (especially breakfast), we will have to learn how to eat six small meals a day, starting with breakfast within an hour of getting up.  If we've been sedentary, we will have to learn how to move our bodies on a regular basis.

It's always easier to stay where we are, doing what we've always done.  But that doesn't get us where we want to be!  Someone once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  For us to stop our own dieting insanity and truly get what we've never had, we have to be willing to do things we've never done.  It may feel awkward at first - new things usually are awkward - but the more we begin to embrace new, healthier habits, the more natural they will begin to feel.

Doing what we've never done involves the choices we'll make today.  Choose wisely :-)