Marching Into The Peace Corps, pt 17: The Mind and Body Connection

I’ve often read that people fail on diets because they stop exercising or because they can’t control their caloric intake. To some degree these factors do contribute to it, but they’re not the actual downward spiral that tanks a diet; these are symptoms of a greater problem called YOU.

Normally I don’t care for Oprah Winfrey, although many people I know admit to following her like a cult, but I decided to watch it the other day when Bob Greene was on promoting his “New Life Diet” just in case I could learn something from him. I disagreed with his choice of many “diet” foods and thought his recommendations to be a bit unsound, however, he was correct that the mind and body connection is crucial to success in this venue.

Greene talked about having a goal, a reason for losing weight. I always had reasons before, but I was never emotionally connected or invested in them. It’s the usual mistake most single women who are dieting make: “I’ll lose weight and attract a mate.” This goal may be fine, but I found I didn’t actually want a mate and continued to eat to keep any prospect(s) at bay most of the time. Couching it in nice little phrases like, “He’s going to have to want me the way I am”, was nothing more than a protective measure to ensure people would steer clear of me. I could never seem to lose weight and keep it off, and that was because I wasn’t invested in the outcome.

When God spoke to me and told me to join the Peace Corps, I became completely and utterly invested in losing weight because the goal isn’t about me. This is something larger and is for God’s glory, not my own. I’m sure I’ll benefit to some degree when I put on a bathing suit in the hot summer months, but that’s at the bottom of my list. It’s about obeying a larger call on my life that drives me to run the race and cross the finish line.

Emotionally being tied to a real goal is often the actual problem. I always wonder when I see someone on TV promoting a product, if they’re paid actors. I’ll give the woman the benefit of the doubt this time around, but she is coming to mind. She talked about how her husband loved her no matter her weight, and he said to her one day that he wanted to make sure she’d be around to see all their children grow up, marry, and start a family. She started to tear and choke up. She had all the elements of being emotionally invested in her weight loss.

Most of the time we start a weight loss program for a specific event – “I need to lose 20 pounds before the wedding/cruise/high school reunion!” and we throw ourselves into it with gusto because it’s a short-term goal. Somewhere in the back of our heads we’ve programmed in there it’s not a lifestyle change, and we can go back to eating a half a pizza and a milkshake after the event in question. We are only temporarily invested, and then backslide into the condition we were in before.

Before you start a weight loss plan, sit down and make an honest assessment of why you want to do this. Did your doctor sit you down and say, “If you don’t change your diet, you’ll be dead in six months”, and it scared the heck out of you? Did someone make a fat joke that cut deep, but you smiled and laughed as if it were funny? I still can remember my nephew approaching my little sister and saying, “Why are you fat, Auntie? Is it because you eat too much food?” She stood there and tears welled up in her eyes. He was only about six years old and didn’t know. That happened nearly fifteen years ago, and I still can remember it as if it happened yesterday. He could’ve asked me the question just as easily as he had asked her.

Find your true emotional reason for wanting to lose weight, not the “I want to turn heads on the beach”. This is the result, not the reason – don’t confuse the two or you will fail in the long term. When you find real reason, hold onto it and treat it like a precious jewel or like the last piece of chocolate in the world and never stop dwelling on it. Be like that weird creature in the Lord of the Rings: “My precious…” and pursue it like it was oxygen. Remember the old career advice many have given over time – “do what you love, and the (fill in the blank) will follow”? Modify it:: “exercise and eat right, and the good, healthy life you seek will follow.”

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quazen.com articles by this writer can be found here

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relijournal.com articles are here

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