Thursday, May 3, 2012

Giving Myself Credit

  I had a great WI today - down 6 lbs.  That's first.  Now in full disclosure mode, I have been having some fairly serious gastric problems of late.  I am scheduled to have a test done next week in hopes of nailing down a diagnosis.  But last Saturday evening, I had another serious bout of pain, and although I didn't need to go the the ER like last time, it was still pretty scary.  And for most of this week, I have been limited in my eating.  Some of that was simple fear - if I ate too much, I was afraid I'd start feeling pains again.  In the first day or two, I simply felt very tender, as a result of the stresses of Saturday night.  If I ate smaller amounts, I felt ok.

  So when I had this great weigh in result, I was tempted to write it off and say, well I was not feeling well, so it doesn't really count.  But the truth is, as I felt better, there was a pretty good war going on inside me most of the time.  I wanted to be cautious, because of the fear of another episode.  But I still really wanted to eat a lot at times, and not always good choices.  In fact, the devil on my shoulder kept rationalizing, and saying that since I was eating much smaller amounts than usual, and was frequently feeling actual hunger, that it would be ok to make some of my choices higher calorie/fat options.  Like having one of those delicious new frappes from Burger King instead of making myself a smoothie at home.

  I felt like it was an interesting week, with this battle raging on.  And the fact of the matter is that I continued to make smart choices, both in what I chose to eat and in my portion size. As a result, I've decided to give myself credit for the weight loss, because although some of it can be attributed to illness, the simple truth is that it would have been a lot less than 6 lbs if I'd given in to temptation.  So I gladly accepted the star the leader gave me, and shared my success at the meeting, with no hedging.

  It's so easy to diminish ourselves and our accomplishments.  To play them off, and act like they were accidental or just no big deal. So I followed last week's advice, and spoke to myself about it the way I would speak to a friend, and take the credit for the work.   And you know what?  I'm glad I did!

1 comment:

  1. Isn't it funny we are so easy to criticize ourselves and so hard to say yes, we accomplished something!

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