My life is an unusual one in many aspects. I know a lot of people believe that, but, in my case, it really is true. I have access to my past in a way that few people do because of the unique nature of how my husband and I came together. When people hear that I married a pen pal, I'm not sure what they imagine constituted the content of our distance "courtship". No matter what they may speculate on, it's almost certainly not the reality.
I have a large box of greeting cards, postcards, and letters that my husband and I exchanged over our year of separation. They paint a certain picture of how things were between us, but they are actually far less descriptive than may be expected. Most of them talk less about our thoughts and lives and more about our undying love and missing one another terribly. I wrote to him nearly every day in one form or another. He wrote to me less, but there was a reason for that. The printed material we have is revealing, but not nearly as much as the other materials that we kept.
My husband and I primarily talked to one another on old-fashioned cassette tapes. We didn't merely send a few hours here and there, we narrated our entire lives, played games together (question-based ones), talked about the mundane and the epic details of life, had fights, made up, cried (mostly me), and expressed joy. The full range of a life "together" is on those tapes. We didn't save every one of them, as it would have been economically unfeasible given the cost of tapes at the time, but we saved about 50 of them. This constitutes a broad cross section and hours and hours of our lives at the ages of 22 and 24.
I have been listening to these tapes over time and, while I'm delighted by my husband's old tapes as they bring me such joy, I'm fascinated by mine as well. The truth is that the emerging me, the one that went from being in control of her weight and her lifestyle habits to plummeting back to super morbidly obesity is right there. In fact, she deconstructs herself, tears down the psychological walls that gave her the toughness to make hard changes, and becomes a creature of utter vulnerability. When I finally got together with my husband, I was a nicer person, a better partner, a more rational, productive and constructive communicator, and one small psychological breeze away from utter physical destruction.
There are two instances on tapes in particular which I listened to which were utterly devastating in revealing what I had done to myself. The shocking part is that the process is so obvious, palpable, and can be pin-pointed directly to my technique of mental rewriting. I was actively rewiring as I spoke to my husband, and I was falling apart emotionally as I did so. It was hard, painful, and it tore down defensive walls that were hurting him. Until I listened to those tapes, I had no idea that I had started doing this to myself so early in my life. I also, of course, did not conceptualize it for what it was. I followed the process, but this was me "feeling my way through it." It was a process as it unfolded, not consciously undertaken.
I don't want to be cryptic here, but it is hard to detail the contents of hours of self-reflection spoken into tapes. The first stage of this is seen when my future husband and I suffer a conflict in which I am angry with him and confront him in an aggressive and "attacking" manner. When he asks me if I could talk to him about these problems in a way which is loving and supportive rather than hostile, I respond to him by saying that I want to do that, but I have no idea how. I tell him that all of the role modeling in my life and all of my experiences were carried out in the manner in which I dealt with him and that I would try, but I didn't know how just then to be the better communicator in the midst of heated conflict.
On another later tape, after some particularly stressful and difficult times in my life, I tell my husband that I believe that I am "sick" emotionally and psychologically and I'm not sure that I know how to get well or if it is even possible. I was at an acute turning point at which I realize that behavioral changes alone were not going to "fix" me in a meaningful way.
I was a staunch follower of behaviorism, a psychological philosophy which neatly addressed stimuli and responses in order to change, but it came crashing down on me that this sterile and ordered way of dealing with issues was not nearly enough. Yes, it helped me lose weight and gain a sense of control in my life, but it didn't deal with the deeper issues. I looked better, felt better, and had all of the trappings of external accomplishment, but I was filled with pain and lacked emotional control. No matter how disciplined I was, I was not happy and still dealt with people, and my then-boyfriend-now-husband in destructive ways. Behaviorism was not the answer, at least not the all-healing and encompassing one.
Surrounded by people who were as "sick" or "sicker" than me, I could not see how I behaved as anything but a reflection of "normality". My interactions with him and how I dealt with him, because he was and still is the most psychologically "well" person I have ever known, revealed the depths of my dysfunction. Those issues hurt him, and they hurt out relationship and I wanted desperately not to infect him with my "sickness". At that time, though I loved him deeply and completely and wanted nothing in life more than to have a future with him, I told him that if he didn't want to deal with someone as messed up as me, I would understand if he ended our relationship. Being the person he is, he said that my perspective was that he may catch my "sickness", but his was that it was possible that I might not instead catch his "wellness".
During a long-running conflict over interactions with an ex-girlfriend of his who we were both still in communication with, I engaged in another long and tearful period of self-revelation. It was this tape that was pivotal in the sequence of tapes I was listening to that made it clear to me that I was now practicing the "reflection" phase of my rewiring as well as having an emerging awareness of patterns. While listening to this tape, and realizing what my 22-year-old self was doing, I started to weep. There was a truth that I have been rejecting that was undeniable after what I'd heard my younger self say.
This truth is one that I have not expressed in this blog because I have largely rejected it to date. My husband said to me quite some time ago and on several occasions that he believes that I regained weight because of the way in which I tore down my defensive walls and made myself greatly more vulnerable in order to be a more suitable mate for him. The woman he met was superficially "stronger" than I feel I am now. She exhibited mental toughness that I feel I no longer possess. As my mother used to say, I didn't "take any guff." People were intimidated by me, and that made sure they didn't find a soft spot from which to hurt me. I stood alone, and I made my own way.
Instead of being hostile, defensive, and keeping people out, I became positive, loving, and accepting to let him in. Unfortunately, this change opened me up to a world of suffering. Though he did not hurt me, what was to come when we finally got together physically and moved to his home area, absolutely destroyed me. I had put down my emotional shield and sword, and I got slaughtered.
I resisted this truth for a variety of reasons. One was that I did not want to "blame" him for my weight gain in any way. I felt that even considering his observation as the truth would be tantamount to doing so, albeit in an indirect fashion. Another was that I felt it was wrong to not take full "responsibility" for my fatness, especially since doing so allowed me to hate myself and confirm a poor image of myself.
Another tape revealed the completion of my alteration from the tough and combative "bitch" I was when I was upset to what I was by the time our distance courtship reached its conclusion. I was combative with my mother's verbal and emotional abuse when my then-boyfriend and I came together through our pen pal relationship. By the time I was packing up and leaving to join him in his home area, I was not engaging angrily with people anymore. When my family dealt with me with hostility, I would calmly say, "there is no need to be hostile." They would angrily mock me for having taken on this new pattern of behavior. I had changed fundamentally.
The reason I'm writing about this is that I have a record of myself which is detailed, covers a long span of time, and is historically undeniably accurate. As a record of personal change, it cannot be doubted in any way. I can see how changing to become a better person in one way took away the fragile structures which held my weight maintaining and loss habits in place. When I could not fight back, I had to seek solace and comfort. I couldn't cope by being angry and hostile, so I turned inward and ate and self-hated. The price I paid for the changes I made was that I got super fat again, and I stayed that way for over two decades because I couldn't turn back to what I was without damaging the relationship I had with my husband or hurting him and I couldn't move forward because I didn't have the self-understanding required to build new coping mechanisms.
My husband was right. The changes I made did have a profound effect on me such that I regained weight. Of course, that's not the end of the story, but it is a very important piece of it. This piece reveals that we operate in balance in our lives and that the ability to operate in the world in a particular fashion is impermanent. When a critical change occurs and the balance is upset, the ability to make positive choices can crumble like a house of cards.
The truth is that I let down dark, spiky and hurtful defensive walls before putting solid, stable, protective mechanisms in place. I did not know that I was attempting to address this very problem over the past three years as I have lost weight again, but I had a strong sense of the price I'd have to pay this time when I lost weight if I didn't dig down deeper than simply deciding to "eat less" and "move more". Yes, I needed to change behaviors, but I needed to know why I engaged in those behaviors in the first place and what changing them was going to mean to me emotionally.
A big reason that I explore the psychology of weight loss is that I was terrified of losing a lot of weight again and then regaining and I wanted to make sure that that did not happen again. I knew identity would be an issue and that I'd have to work on building a new one. I knew I was losing a source of comfort and would have to find other ones. I knew my routines would be lost and I'd have to find more productive ones. I knew that I couldn't dismantle one critical aspect of my life (that with food) without building others simultaneously or I'd be at risk again. I just didn't know that I was actually attempting not to repeat a particular mistake that I'd already made 24 years ago.
Showing posts with label change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label change. Show all posts
Monday, October 1, 2012
Friday, June 22, 2012
A roadmap to changing
People talk a lot about choices in life as if we made them under black and white conditions. Eat this, not that. Move more, sit less. In fact, in the weight loss world, there are many people who enjoy indulging in “Yoda-isms”. They say, “do or not do, there is no try.”
This sort of absolutism makes it very difficult for people who cannot make the “right” choices to feel that they will ever succeed. Every morning they get up with a laundry list of choices they hope to make and every night they go to bed feeling like failures for not having made them. They don't understand why they simply don't make the best choices and point to their character flaws as the reason. It's about a lack of “willpower” or being “weak”. They see others around them who seem capable of making the changes they want to make, and feel demoralized and deflated at the fact that they can't do so as well.
I've often said and truly believe that talk of “choice” in stark terms helps no one. It's not about inspiration, motivation, or intestinal fortitude, but about a complex array of extremely personal factors. Environment, temperament, socioeconomic status, and psychology (among other things) all play into the ability to make particular choices. Change is about knowing what choices you personally can and cannot make and about expanding your range of choices slowly and with the establishment of new routines.
I drew a graphic to explain this more clearly. In the center, we have choices that are easy for us to make. They tend to be the most gratifying and convenient options. For most people, but not all, they include resting, being entertained, and eating very tasty food. The extent to which we rely on the easy choices is often based on how hard our life is. This can be seen as the most comfortable zone to operate in and people who are stressed, tired, or physically or psychologically ill will tend to operate in this space most of the time. They do this not because they are lazy or weak, but rather because they don't have the stamina to go outside of that range of choices.
Beyond the easiest range of choices are the “less easy” ones. We tend to operate sporadically in this space throughout the day, generally based on being pushed by various factors into doing so. For many, these would include moderately taxing activities such as taking a brief walk instead of watching T.V., eating a carrot instead of a potato, or reading an educating non-fiction book instead of a fiction book. It also includes doing your tax forms or dealing with other unpleasant, but necessary societal requirements.
Making less easy choices seems like it shouldn't over-tax anyone's resolve, but it's not so simple as that. The stress incurred and energy spent on each individual "less easy" choice may not seem like much, but making a multitude of them adds up. It becomes harder and harder to make more of such choices throughout the day. There is exhaustion when you spend most of your day operating by making choices in this space. It makes it harder to operate in the next space and to make "difficult choices". It's one of the reasons mothers are so overwhelmed. They aren't doing one thing which is so hard, but many, many things which are not easy.
Regarding, “difficult choices”, it's important to keep in mind that what is “difficult” for one may be “easy” for another. I will speak in generalities to illustrate the point, but it's imperative to know that such things are highly personalized. “Difficult” choices for many may include getting up and going to the gym instead of sleeping in, preparing a healthy meal which includes time-consuming processes like chopping and cooking vegetables or fruit instead of eating out, or studying for a test instead of playing a video game. Most people cannot make choices in this space too often without being worn out. This is why it is important not to make a great many choices in this space for too long or too often.
When I was in college, I used to come home every day and sleep because studying constantly was my operating in the "difficult choice" space a great deal of the time. I had no choice but to do those things, but it decimated my quality of life outside of school until I became acclimated to the level of study and the process dropped down to the status of a "less easy" choice. Mastery of the process as well as the establishment of a routine helped make it less difficult, though it would never be easy.
Finally, there is the range of “impossible” choices. This is perhaps the hardest category to speak in general about because it is the most personal territory. For a poor person, signing up for and going to a gym for swimming falls into the range of “impossible”, whereas for a financially comfortable person, it is “difficult”. For a wealthy person with a pool in the backyard, it is “less easy” or “easy” if that person enjoys swimming or lives in a hot environment. For me, in 2009, taking a long walk fell into the “impossible” category because of crippling back pain. The me in 2012 finds taking a long walk “less easy” or even “easy” depending on my health condition, responsibilities, and free time.
The individual nature of how hard or easy a choice is cannot be stressed enough. One of the mistakes people make is in assuming that what is easy for them should be easy for others (and vice versa) and that it is only through personal shortcomings such as laziness, gluttony, immaturity, or a lack of responsibility that others cannot make the same choices that they can. They do this out of ignorance, but also because elevating oneself at the expense of others is very ego-gratifying. Criticizing others is a means for such people to feel better about themselves. Unfortunately, we accept this criticism when we want to change because we don't want to “let ourselves off the hook” for not making the “right” choices.
This need to self-criticize likely stems from the way in which we were raised. Children will operate in the "easy" space as much as possible and their parents constantly admonish them for their poor choices and inability or lack of desire to do what is constructive, but difficult. Often, you find people who want to make positive changes in their lives talking about how they need someone to "kick their asses". These people are, essentially, looking for someone to assume the parental role with them. They feel that they will not or cannot make hard choices without pressure from an authority figure. However, as adults, surrendering ourselves to authority in this way and seeking the approval of outsiders as a motivational tool in accomplishing our goals is not a good choice. When we do this, we are placing control outside of ourselves as well as placing the credit for success on those who push us rather than on ourselves for successfully changing.
Successful change comes from inside, and I absolutely do not embrace the idea of seeking any sort of external critical voice when trying to truly change. Beyond the aforementioned reason of placing control and credit outside of yourself, there is also the strong possibility that judgment will be attached to your choices. You will be "good" or "bad" based on how you behave in the eyes of your mentor, disciplinarian, master, mother, father, etc. Words like "right" and "wrong" and "good" and "bad" have no positive role in psychological change.
It's important to understand that morality does not play into choice-making unless the choices are being made about true matters of right and wrong such as choosing to harm others. The first step in moving closer to who you want to be by making the choices you want is to stop that critical inner voice that says you are making “bad” or “good” choices and that doing so reflects your value or character strength. The productive and constructive thing to do is to analyze your particular situation and know what you personally can and cannot do.
To this end, I recommend people look carefully at their lives and consider what are easy, less easy, difficult, and impossible choices for them. In fact, I would recommend writing it all out so that you know where you are starting from before making a change. I didn't do this specifically, but I did do it mentally. I knew that I would not be able to give up 100% food that people saw as "bad". While this was not an "impossible" choice for me, it did fall into the space of "very, very difficult" and would have taxed my ability to make a multitude of more meaningful "less easy" choices that would propel me closer to my goals more rapidly than such a hard choice.
It's imperative not to look at it through anyone's eyes but your own. You should not say, “this shouldn't be impossible for me,” but rather honestly determine without judgment whether or not it is. I was taken to task and personally attacked by another blogger for not giving up chocolate. I'm sure he saw this as a fatal weakness of my character, but I did not accept that judgment and followed my own path because I know what I can and cannot do based on living my life in my skin. I also know that he regained weight that he lost despite making more difficult choices than me, and I have not.
I chose not to burn out my ability to change by making choices too close to what was psychologically "impossible" for me. And make no mistake, what is emotionally possible is just as if not more important than what is physically possible. At this moment, you may be physically capable of jogging for a half hour everyday, but that doesn't mean that you have the time, inclination, or mental ability to do it. It's okay if things other people can do are “impossible” for you for whatever reason. You need to plot the choices graph accurately, honestly, and without judgment for you. This is the beginning of the process.
Once you know where choices fall for you in this range, you can start to work on making less easy choices which move in the direction you'd like to go and try to do them more often as you feel more capable of doing so. For me, this began with eating a little less at every meal. I couldn't dramatically reduce what and how much I ate immediately, but I could put back two spoonfuls. This was a “less easy” but very doable choice. I couldn't endure hunger for an hour in order to stretch my biological and psychological stamina for not eating, but I could endure 5 minutes and later stretch that to 10 then 15, then a half hour. I couldn't walk for an hour, but I could walk for 3 minutes and then sit down. I couldn't make all of my food from scratch for maximum health and minimum calorie density at first, but I could spend some time once a week making a large pot of tomato soup.
By practicing expanding your choices such that you make more of them from the “less easy” range, you gradually make the “easy” range wider. Routine behaviors become easier both because the mental barriers become lower and you develop stamina for them. Expanding the range of “easy” is the first step. Once you start this expansion, formerly “difficult” or “impossible” choices may start to fall into the “less easy” and “difficult” range. It depends upon personal limitations, and it's very important not to become angry at yourself for an inability to expand beyond a certain point.
The mistake people often make when attempting to make any change in their lives, including losing weight, is that they want to jump right to making “difficult” or, for them, “impossible” choices right away. They fail to recognize their personal limits by comparing their choices to those of others or operating from the “should” mindset rather than the “are capable of” frame of thinking. Sometimes what is easy for others is hard for you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. For people with particular mental or physical health issues, there may be little or no overlap between "easy" choices. For instance, a person with a severe eating disorder such as anorexia may find it impossible to eat a cupcake, whereas the vast majority of people would find it "easy". I personally find it "impossible" to drink alcohol of any kind, but many people find that easy.
Many times, women who are working their particular weight loss program will say that you have to “make the time” to exercise, prepare healthy meals, etc. They tell exhausted people who say they simply can't do everything and look after their bodies in the way they like that they aren't making it enough of a priority and need to “just do it.” This sort of thinking stems from an inability to understand a critical concept and that is that all choices are not the same for everyone. The circle of options for some people overlap greatly, but for others, very few options overlap. We tend to believe that everyone operates similarly to us, but this is extreme egotism.
The reality is that we are all very different for a variety of reasons and we need to be kind and patient with ourselves in accepting what choices we can and cannot make at a given time. For lasting and effective change, largely operating within our limits until we can slowly and consistently expand them is essential.
It's also important to know that, when times are hard, it's okay to live within the comfortable range of “easy choices” for periods of time while we try to regain our stamina either emotionally or physically. We need to be patient and keep confidence that we will work to expand into other ranges of difficult choice-making when we have that capacity. It is not a failure to do this. Failure will come only if you overtax yourself such that you are too exhausted or demoralized to work slowly toward making other choices.
This sort of absolutism makes it very difficult for people who cannot make the “right” choices to feel that they will ever succeed. Every morning they get up with a laundry list of choices they hope to make and every night they go to bed feeling like failures for not having made them. They don't understand why they simply don't make the best choices and point to their character flaws as the reason. It's about a lack of “willpower” or being “weak”. They see others around them who seem capable of making the changes they want to make, and feel demoralized and deflated at the fact that they can't do so as well.
I've often said and truly believe that talk of “choice” in stark terms helps no one. It's not about inspiration, motivation, or intestinal fortitude, but about a complex array of extremely personal factors. Environment, temperament, socioeconomic status, and psychology (among other things) all play into the ability to make particular choices. Change is about knowing what choices you personally can and cannot make and about expanding your range of choices slowly and with the establishment of new routines.
I drew a graphic to explain this more clearly. In the center, we have choices that are easy for us to make. They tend to be the most gratifying and convenient options. For most people, but not all, they include resting, being entertained, and eating very tasty food. The extent to which we rely on the easy choices is often based on how hard our life is. This can be seen as the most comfortable zone to operate in and people who are stressed, tired, or physically or psychologically ill will tend to operate in this space most of the time. They do this not because they are lazy or weak, but rather because they don't have the stamina to go outside of that range of choices.
Beyond the easiest range of choices are the “less easy” ones. We tend to operate sporadically in this space throughout the day, generally based on being pushed by various factors into doing so. For many, these would include moderately taxing activities such as taking a brief walk instead of watching T.V., eating a carrot instead of a potato, or reading an educating non-fiction book instead of a fiction book. It also includes doing your tax forms or dealing with other unpleasant, but necessary societal requirements.
Making less easy choices seems like it shouldn't over-tax anyone's resolve, but it's not so simple as that. The stress incurred and energy spent on each individual "less easy" choice may not seem like much, but making a multitude of them adds up. It becomes harder and harder to make more of such choices throughout the day. There is exhaustion when you spend most of your day operating by making choices in this space. It makes it harder to operate in the next space and to make "difficult choices". It's one of the reasons mothers are so overwhelmed. They aren't doing one thing which is so hard, but many, many things which are not easy.
Regarding, “difficult choices”, it's important to keep in mind that what is “difficult” for one may be “easy” for another. I will speak in generalities to illustrate the point, but it's imperative to know that such things are highly personalized. “Difficult” choices for many may include getting up and going to the gym instead of sleeping in, preparing a healthy meal which includes time-consuming processes like chopping and cooking vegetables or fruit instead of eating out, or studying for a test instead of playing a video game. Most people cannot make choices in this space too often without being worn out. This is why it is important not to make a great many choices in this space for too long or too often.
When I was in college, I used to come home every day and sleep because studying constantly was my operating in the "difficult choice" space a great deal of the time. I had no choice but to do those things, but it decimated my quality of life outside of school until I became acclimated to the level of study and the process dropped down to the status of a "less easy" choice. Mastery of the process as well as the establishment of a routine helped make it less difficult, though it would never be easy.
Finally, there is the range of “impossible” choices. This is perhaps the hardest category to speak in general about because it is the most personal territory. For a poor person, signing up for and going to a gym for swimming falls into the range of “impossible”, whereas for a financially comfortable person, it is “difficult”. For a wealthy person with a pool in the backyard, it is “less easy” or “easy” if that person enjoys swimming or lives in a hot environment. For me, in 2009, taking a long walk fell into the “impossible” category because of crippling back pain. The me in 2012 finds taking a long walk “less easy” or even “easy” depending on my health condition, responsibilities, and free time.
The individual nature of how hard or easy a choice is cannot be stressed enough. One of the mistakes people make is in assuming that what is easy for them should be easy for others (and vice versa) and that it is only through personal shortcomings such as laziness, gluttony, immaturity, or a lack of responsibility that others cannot make the same choices that they can. They do this out of ignorance, but also because elevating oneself at the expense of others is very ego-gratifying. Criticizing others is a means for such people to feel better about themselves. Unfortunately, we accept this criticism when we want to change because we don't want to “let ourselves off the hook” for not making the “right” choices.
This need to self-criticize likely stems from the way in which we were raised. Children will operate in the "easy" space as much as possible and their parents constantly admonish them for their poor choices and inability or lack of desire to do what is constructive, but difficult. Often, you find people who want to make positive changes in their lives talking about how they need someone to "kick their asses". These people are, essentially, looking for someone to assume the parental role with them. They feel that they will not or cannot make hard choices without pressure from an authority figure. However, as adults, surrendering ourselves to authority in this way and seeking the approval of outsiders as a motivational tool in accomplishing our goals is not a good choice. When we do this, we are placing control outside of ourselves as well as placing the credit for success on those who push us rather than on ourselves for successfully changing.
Successful change comes from inside, and I absolutely do not embrace the idea of seeking any sort of external critical voice when trying to truly change. Beyond the aforementioned reason of placing control and credit outside of yourself, there is also the strong possibility that judgment will be attached to your choices. You will be "good" or "bad" based on how you behave in the eyes of your mentor, disciplinarian, master, mother, father, etc. Words like "right" and "wrong" and "good" and "bad" have no positive role in psychological change.
It's important to understand that morality does not play into choice-making unless the choices are being made about true matters of right and wrong such as choosing to harm others. The first step in moving closer to who you want to be by making the choices you want is to stop that critical inner voice that says you are making “bad” or “good” choices and that doing so reflects your value or character strength. The productive and constructive thing to do is to analyze your particular situation and know what you personally can and cannot do.
To this end, I recommend people look carefully at their lives and consider what are easy, less easy, difficult, and impossible choices for them. In fact, I would recommend writing it all out so that you know where you are starting from before making a change. I didn't do this specifically, but I did do it mentally. I knew that I would not be able to give up 100% food that people saw as "bad". While this was not an "impossible" choice for me, it did fall into the space of "very, very difficult" and would have taxed my ability to make a multitude of more meaningful "less easy" choices that would propel me closer to my goals more rapidly than such a hard choice.
It's imperative not to look at it through anyone's eyes but your own. You should not say, “this shouldn't be impossible for me,” but rather honestly determine without judgment whether or not it is. I was taken to task and personally attacked by another blogger for not giving up chocolate. I'm sure he saw this as a fatal weakness of my character, but I did not accept that judgment and followed my own path because I know what I can and cannot do based on living my life in my skin. I also know that he regained weight that he lost despite making more difficult choices than me, and I have not.
I chose not to burn out my ability to change by making choices too close to what was psychologically "impossible" for me. And make no mistake, what is emotionally possible is just as if not more important than what is physically possible. At this moment, you may be physically capable of jogging for a half hour everyday, but that doesn't mean that you have the time, inclination, or mental ability to do it. It's okay if things other people can do are “impossible” for you for whatever reason. You need to plot the choices graph accurately, honestly, and without judgment for you. This is the beginning of the process.
Once you know where choices fall for you in this range, you can start to work on making less easy choices which move in the direction you'd like to go and try to do them more often as you feel more capable of doing so. For me, this began with eating a little less at every meal. I couldn't dramatically reduce what and how much I ate immediately, but I could put back two spoonfuls. This was a “less easy” but very doable choice. I couldn't endure hunger for an hour in order to stretch my biological and psychological stamina for not eating, but I could endure 5 minutes and later stretch that to 10 then 15, then a half hour. I couldn't walk for an hour, but I could walk for 3 minutes and then sit down. I couldn't make all of my food from scratch for maximum health and minimum calorie density at first, but I could spend some time once a week making a large pot of tomato soup.
By practicing expanding your choices such that you make more of them from the “less easy” range, you gradually make the “easy” range wider. Routine behaviors become easier both because the mental barriers become lower and you develop stamina for them. Expanding the range of “easy” is the first step. Once you start this expansion, formerly “difficult” or “impossible” choices may start to fall into the “less easy” and “difficult” range. It depends upon personal limitations, and it's very important not to become angry at yourself for an inability to expand beyond a certain point.
The mistake people often make when attempting to make any change in their lives, including losing weight, is that they want to jump right to making “difficult” or, for them, “impossible” choices right away. They fail to recognize their personal limits by comparing their choices to those of others or operating from the “should” mindset rather than the “are capable of” frame of thinking. Sometimes what is easy for others is hard for you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. For people with particular mental or physical health issues, there may be little or no overlap between "easy" choices. For instance, a person with a severe eating disorder such as anorexia may find it impossible to eat a cupcake, whereas the vast majority of people would find it "easy". I personally find it "impossible" to drink alcohol of any kind, but many people find that easy.
Many times, women who are working their particular weight loss program will say that you have to “make the time” to exercise, prepare healthy meals, etc. They tell exhausted people who say they simply can't do everything and look after their bodies in the way they like that they aren't making it enough of a priority and need to “just do it.” This sort of thinking stems from an inability to understand a critical concept and that is that all choices are not the same for everyone. The circle of options for some people overlap greatly, but for others, very few options overlap. We tend to believe that everyone operates similarly to us, but this is extreme egotism.
The reality is that we are all very different for a variety of reasons and we need to be kind and patient with ourselves in accepting what choices we can and cannot make at a given time. For lasting and effective change, largely operating within our limits until we can slowly and consistently expand them is essential.
It's also important to know that, when times are hard, it's okay to live within the comfortable range of “easy choices” for periods of time while we try to regain our stamina either emotionally or physically. We need to be patient and keep confidence that we will work to expand into other ranges of difficult choice-making when we have that capacity. It is not a failure to do this. Failure will come only if you overtax yourself such that you are too exhausted or demoralized to work slowly toward making other choices.
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