Are you a Debbie or a Lori? 

I'd like to introduce you to two women,

Debbie & Lori

Debbie and Lori have a lot in common. Like most woman in the United States Debbie and Lori have spent the last 30 years focused on the needs of their families and work responsibilities. When they had time to focus on themselves they just felt tired, over weight and a little lost which always resulted in trying some new dieting strategy that claimed to boost energy and drop weight fast.

News flash, it never worked so the endless quest to find the next, newest, greatest 'sure' thing was just added to the rollercoaster of stress, lack of sleep, dieting, food binges and weight gain.

Now in their 50s, Debbie and Lori are just starting to realize that life has changed. Their kids are grown and out of the house. Work is more manageable. Retirement is becoming a reality.

Debbie and Lori are realizing that they have TIME which has allowed them to take a good look at how they feel and it isn't great. They're not sleeping well so they're tired with brain fog and low energy. What's even more frustrating, they're still carrying that extra weight they've been trying to lose for however many years.

Here's where things change between Debbie and Lori...

Debbie

Debbie is 100% focused on her weight. She has a number that she wants to see on her bathroom scale and once she hits that number she's sure everything will be great. She'll be happy, she'll have loads of energy and now that she has time, exercise will become her new hobby.

She tells herself that this is it, the dieting will finally be over. She just has to buckle down and cut her calories and push through the hunger this one last time so she can finally reach her goal weight.

She tells herself it won't be hard because she's actually never really hungry. She hardly eats at all. She can go most days without eating anything till dinner time. Yes, sometimes she's so hungry by dinner that she just eats whatever is fast and easy but it's o.k. because that's all she ate all day.

She tells herself that she only indulges occasionally, most of the time she really isn't even interested in food.

She's sure, this time it will happen fast because she's decided to fully commit to her weight loss goal. She's all in! She's going to be perfect.

Debbie is attached to her weight loss goal. It's all or nothing for her. As long as she's perfect and doesn't make any mistakes she'll finally lose the weight, once and for all.

What Debbie doesn't realize is, her attachment to her goal is setting her up for failure. She's given meaning to her weight loss goal. She's making her success or failure mean something about her. The outcome will give her evidence to believe something about herself.

Success = when she's perfect she can do it, she will suffer for her success
Failure = her metabolism is broken, there's nothing she can do, it's not her fault, she has no willpower, everyone sabotages her efforts, it's no use she'll always be 'the big girl'

Debbie isn't learning how to truly SUCCEED. She's reinforcing her beliefs that without total control she can't succeed.

Her success is achieved by being perfect but she knows she's not perfect so her expectation of success is low, short lived. She expects to regain her weight because (most of the time) she's not perfect. Yo-yo weight loss/regain is what she expects.

When she fails it's (again) due to lack of control. It's not her choices or lifestyle but her body or friends sabotaging her efforts, it's her inability to be perfect.

Debbie doesn't know how to fail. She doesn't know how to over come setbacks. Debbie lacks resilience, "the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change". (Merriam-Webster)

Being attached to a goal makes it an all or nothing experience. It makes life seem hard and heavy.

Debbie sees two choices:

1) Perfectly executing a restrictive dieting protocol that will give her short-term results while taking the fun out of life because she feels moody, deprived, hungry and frustrated.
2) Resigning herself to being over weight, tired and uncomfortable because she isn't perfect, her bodies broken, her friends and family aren't helpful and the only thing that makes her happy is food (at least for a few minutes) so she might as well just give up and eat.

Either way Debbie doesn't see a future where she has everything she wants and is truly happy. To Debbie life is hard. There's no fun in her journey. Being attached to her goal makes everything heavy and personal. 

Debbie needs to let go of past evidence she's collected about her ability to succeed or fail. She needs to learn that there is a difference between doing everything right and doing the right things.

Lori

Lori would also like to lose her extra weight BUT Lori's bigger focus is on feeling good.

Lori understands the difference between doing everything right and doing the right things.

Lori could keep working to be more efficient at doing things 'right' (perfecting weight loss strategies), the things that just haven't worked for her in the past but instead Lori has decided to focus on being more effective at doing the 'right things' (focusing on health and wellness).

Lori doesn't look at her weight loss goal as life changing. She sees life changes as the right way to her weight loss goal and so much more.

Lori isn't attached to her weight loss goal. Body weight changes are is just data points. It means nothing about Lori as a person.

Lori is committed to her overall goal to feel good. She knows this comes from dialing in her health which is very different than simply losing pounds on the scale.

The difference, Lori has a long-term commitment. She can't fail. In fact, Lori expects to see both ups and downs, wins and fails.

Lori's commitment is teaching her to be a person who never gives up. She's learning how to FIGURE IT OUT. She's learning how to succeed.

A 'fail' is an opportunity to recognize what DIDN'T work and figure out how to do things differently.

Lori is learning resilience. Setbacks are just part of being human. They are to be expected.

When Lori encounters a setback she doesn't think of herself as broken or not being perfect. She knows she's not perfect. She doesn't want to be 'perfect'. She's human.

Lori knows that she can and will do what it takes to reach her health, wellness and weight loss goals. She knows she'll figure things out no matter what. She's committed which means, she won't quit. It's not all or nothing.

Time is Lori's partner. She has all the time she needs to reach her goals.

Lori's commitment is about having patience and collecting data through imperfect action.

Lori is resilient because she's not letting her past dictate her future. She knows that setbacks along the way aren't the end but just a bump, an opportunity to learn more about herself and how she can do things better, more effectively.

The changes Lori makes are helping her feel good in so many ways - better sleep, more energy, less aches/pains, better mobility, happy mood - that her weight loss goal is just something extra happening in the background of her awesome life.

Big Picture

Debbie isn't looking at her life as a whole. She has a myopic view that only allows her to see a number on the scale. By solely focusing on the scale she's not only missing all other positive body change but also all the other joy surrounding her.

She's missing her opportunities to learn more about herself. She's continuing to try to be more and more efficient (perfect) at doing things 'right' and over looking how to effectively do the right things

There's this great quote that I love...

Only one thing made him happy
and now that it was gone
everything made him happy

~ unknown

Lori let go of her singular goal to lose weight and has instead found many things about herself and her life that make her happy and encourage her to keep learning what her 'right things' are.

Second Childhood

Debbie and Lori are hitting their second 'childhood'. Really, the best time in their lives.

Unlike early childhood where time and choice are control by someone else, this second 'childhood' comes with wisdom, experience, money, time and free will.

Lori is taking advantage of this fabulous time in life by taking full responsibility for how she feels. She understands that her quality of life is a reflection of her overall health.

Losing weight won't make you happy but being happy and healthy will allow your body to release excess weight.

Commitment vs. Attachment

You get to choose. We've all been Debbie. Even those of us who strive to live like Lori still stumble back to thinking like Debbie. The trick is to learn to recognize the different between being attached and being committed.

We will all fluctuate but no one is stuck at attachment. Lifestyle change is all about learning how to go from attachment to commitment.

Age is just a number. No matter your age you can always strive for more. Commit to being better tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. Figure it out.

Need help? I can help. Click on the button below and set up a time to talk about becoming your version of Healthy You™