You Are the Boss!
Be the CEO of your body.
What if you thought of yourself as the CEO of your body? That it is your JOB to invest in and steer your own health. Real health comes from the inside. It is keeping your immune system strong, your risk of chronic disease low, your brain lively, your muscles strong and flexible. No one can, or is going to take better care of YOU than YOU. When you are invested in your own wellness, if or when you encounter a problem you will make an excellent partner for any medical interventions you may need, and your outcomes are likely to be better.
I have worked with thousands of individuals during my nearly 10 years at WW (formerly Weight Watchers) and have seen many successful individuals and many who have not reached the goals they set for themselves. The reasons for this are as varied and complex as the people themselves. But I do note a broad difference - the first group is full of people who take the program and figure out how to make it work for themselves, and they keep tweaking and changing until it works for them. The second group tends to view the process as a diet - something that begins and ends and is just about cutting back or changing food choices - as opposed to changing the way they LIVE.
What if you could look at your data with a critical eye, like you would if it came across your desk at work? For instance, if you track your food honestly then you begin to see patterns for hunger, weight loss, satiety, pitfalls, and troublesome habits like cookies every afternoon (I speak from experience on that one). You can use it to help yourself. Good data helps you plan next steps.
Unfortunately a lot of people have an emotional attachment to the data, or a lack of interest in keeping data. For instance, many people do not track food honestly because they are not happy with their choices and do not want to see it in writing. Who are we kidding? The only person losing out by the lack of honesty to ourselves IS ourselves. Additionally, people will give their data a lot of emotional power and therefore use it to beat themselves up, make excuses, judge themselves, and berate themselves.
One size does not fit all, and each of us needs to figure out what works best for our bodies, and for the lifestyle we want to lead. The way I eat now is COMPLETELY different than when I first lost my weight for a whole variety of reasons. I will write more about that over time but the changes were driven by data - information I heard, what I learned, paying attention to how food made me feel and how it affected my system, learning more about nutrition, etc.
Do you pay attention to how you physically feel, or your quality of sleep, or your mood, if you have too much sugar/alcohol/fried foods/ice cream? Do you pay attention to how your body feels after a heavy meal? Do you see a correlation between how much you track your food and your weight loss? Do you see a correlation between your activity level and good food choices?
You are in charge of your body. You have tremendous power to heal it. But in order to do that you have to listen and explore what works for you, try it out, assess, adjust... Repeat as needed!
