More About the Hard Part :-)

Happy Thursday! I am writing this from Pennsylvania, where I’m visiting my sister. My husband, my parents and I left yesterday morning for the 600+ mile drive. It was a long day of driving, but with lots of sunshine and the start of fall colors, it was quite lovely. We stopped for a salad for lunch, but other than that, all four of us munched on Medifast crunch bars, cheese puffs and pretzels and drank lots of water (and yes, we had several bathroom stops along the way!).

Yesterday I wrote about the need to change how we relate to food if we’re going to be successful in not only losing weight, but in keeping the weight off, and I talked about emotional eating. I know that emotional eating isn’t the only thing that can trip us up, however. For many of us, we are challenged to figure out how to stay on plan or maintain our weight when much of our social life revolves around food. That is an ongoing challenge for me. Almost every time I’m with a group of people, there is sure to be food – mostly baked sweets, my personal downfall. Every week, someone brings baked goods of some kind to our adult Sunday School class; every Tuesday morning’s Bible study has “treats” and our small group fellowship always starts with coffee and dessert. Getting together with friends almost always means going out for a meal or meeting for coffee (and often dessert).

As I’ve talked with others, I know this is a huge challenge. How on earth do we be part of the social scene and stay on plan?

When I was on Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1, I continued to attend all of my regular activities, but I brought along the foods I needed. If someone was serving dessert, I would make sure I ate before I got there and then simply say I had just eaten and wasn’t hungry. If we were going to a potluck, I’d bring a large tossed salad (and sometimes some cut-up chicken for my “lean”). I realized that life wasn’t going to be put on hold while I lost weight, so I had to choose to make the best of it. There were times when I privately pouted and felt sorry for myself because I wasn’t eating what everyone else was eating, but most of the time it felt good to know that I was making hard but healthy choices. There is something very satisfying about facing a temptation and making the right choice . I worried about what others would think if I wasn’t eating what they were eating, but soon learned that most people didn’t pay any attention to what I was eating, and if they did pay attention, they really didn’t care! I’ve heard people talk about being afraid of offending this person or that person if they don’t eat something, but my best advice is to just get over it because most people really don’t care. A simple explanation that I was trying to be careful with what I ate, or trying to eat healthier, or even that I was trying to lose weight sufficed for almost everyone. I realized that I needed to do what I needed to do for my health and that I couldn’t compromise what I needed to do for fear of offending someone. I reasoned that anyone who really cared about me would want me to get healthy.

In maintenance, it’s gotten a bit more tricky. First of all, I’m often one of the smaller individuals at any given gathering, so when I’m not diving in to the food, it can feel a bit weird. However, I have to keep reminding myself that what I’m doing is about making healthy choices for myself, so I can’t compare what I’m doing to anyone else. Because I know that if I eat sweets on an empty stomach I’ll end up feeling not so great an hour or so later, I bring a crunch bar to Bible study and to our adult Sunday
School class. While others are loading up on baked sweets, I have a bar. As much as I enjoy most of those things, I’ve pretty much decided that I’m not willing to spend calories on them. I know I’ll spend a lot of calories and get little to no nutrition in return, and I know there’s a good chance I’ll feel lousy once the inevitable blood sugar drop kicks in. It’s simply not worth it.

I have to remind myself a lot about my primary choice – staying at a healthy weight – because it is all too easy to want to settle for immediate gratification. I’m not saying I never do that, because I do, but I’m far less likely to do that now than I was even a year ago.

A year ago, fresh from Transition and finally into Maintenance, I reveled in knowing that I could finally eat anything I wanted. Even though I was fairly careful, I found myself returning to some of my old favorites a bit too often, and when I started eating those things, I often ignored portion size and just “went for it.” By the time I got through the holidays last year, I had picked up about ten pounds and my 6’s were as snug as they could be and still be worn in public. That was a real wake-up call for me and I realized that I could NOT return with abandon to my former way of eating or I would risk regaining my weight. This past year has been one of fine-tuning Maintenance and continually evaluating and re-evaluating what I’m eating and why. It’s been more of a challenge than I anticipated, but staying in my goal range, staying in my goal size, and remaining free of diabetes are all worth the effort.

While we’re in Pennsylvania, I am planning on a couple of meals that I know will be outside of my regular Maintenance plan, plus we may make a trip to Hershey :-). The good news is that I have the freedom to do that now, and as long as I don’t make it a habit, I’ll be just fine.

Have a great, on-plan day!