Getting Inside The Head: Low Carb Weight Loss

Getting inside the head of low carb weight loss...

I have been thinking lately about the way people think on low carb - the way that I've found myself thinking and the way I've seen others thinking. Dieting and the low carb way of eating are big changes. Huge changes. Staying on it and being consistent requires huge motivation and commitment.

I've also been thinking about the challenges and mental hurdles one has to jump over and hoops one has to mentally jump through ...to get "there"... Wherever "there" is. Goal Weight. Being "AT GOAL". To the point you are happy. To the point you stop trying to go lower. To the point you want to stay at for a while.

There is a mental place I am convinced that people have to get to before they are ready to launch into this. I think that there is a starting point - a point of reference, and a place where one is sufficiently interested and motivated to make BIG CHANGES in ones life. At least there was a place like that for me. There is a level of dissatisfaction. A level of unhappiness. A level of concern. Worry. Fear. Something has to push you to action. Something has to get you on-track and keep you on-track. Status Quo is not acceptable. There is a level of discomfort and dissatisfaction to motivate you and compell you to action.

People are funny. They take the shortest distance they can find between two points most of the time. They are really apathetic and indifferent about so many things. And they will respond, and move, and change to such simple stimulous and response - if it makes their life easier or better or simpler. If it reduces conflict. I watch folks all the time, and have been something of a student of human nature in my line of work.

For me the impetus was concern for my health and happiness. For me it was the strong desire to raise my kids myself (not to die and have someone else do it). For me it was fear of greater problems than I was already experiencing in my health. Also there was a fear that I would not continue to enjoy success in my career and professional life if I kept bloating up to new highs. Being physically large enough to affect others just by occupying space nearby. I don't know. Some kind of awesome negative gravity that would surround me, and rub off somehow on others. You see it in their faces. They way they look at you, or don't look at you.

For some others going down this road I sense that it is a sense of rejection from others, and wanting to be accepted by them. For some it seems so deep that there is self loathing and a lack of comfort in one's own skin. For some it seems to be so deep that they suffer depression and are full of negativity and low self esteem. A low sense of ones own self-worth. They are reluctant and ashamed to post their "before" pictures. Probably ducking mirrors. Their internal self image is different from how they see themselves in the mirror.

I suppose I had that at some point in my life as well. But at some point I think I more or less stopped caring about what many others thought. It was a defense mechanism, I know, but also a rejection of their value system as a whole. I KNOW I AM WORTH SOMETHING! Even if YOU don't think so! And I just didn't worry about it. I guess this is a defense mechanism when you realize you are not going to be the muscle bound athlete or Prom King or Queen. When the girls you like alot don't like you so much in return. When you become an object of others pity or of scorn or of derision.

Sure, I want my wife and kids and friends and coworkers and even strangers to like the way I look. To really like me inside and out, and to be the kind of person (physically) that they are not ashamed of and are positive about. I want to do things with the kids that I am physically unable to do today. Be more active.

Anyhow, I cannot even begin to put all of my thoughts about this into one posting. They go off in alot of directions. And yet I know that it took awhile for me to pull the trigger and that I am absolutely committed to what I am doing now.

I know that I could not and would not do this until I got to a certain point myself, and I was even willing to forgoe alot and endure alot to be able to eat as I wanted to, to keep from changing, and live as I wanted to without alot of discipline, excercise, and sacrifice.

Now I don't believe I am going to get off of this lifestyle and way of eating. I am too scared to do it. I am too committed to do it. I am not going to fail at this. I am going to learn a new way of living and eating, and make it stick.

The risks to me right now are frustration and depression. Negativity. Negative self talk. Getting down. Failing to believe in myself and in what I am doing. The ability to get over roadblocks. Stalls. Slowing of losses. The bouncing I find myself doing, and periodically (every so many days) watching my weight bounce up and not down. I see these things in even the "GREAT ONES" who have conquered great losses, but are frustrated with some few pounds or some last measure of success. What a colossal failure if I cannot maintain this! If I bloat on back up to where I was. If I cannot sustain this. It is simply unacceptable. Unthinkable.

Impatience seems to be another common problem among LC'ers. We all want to be at goal weight NOW! We don't want to wait for it. We sometimes don't really want to work for it, or suffer, or do without. We think it is taking TOO LONG to get here. We want to get there NOW. Like a spoiled little kid. Throwing fits.

I think in some ways I am more scared about getting there right now. I am worried what will motivate me, when the downward movement of the scale is really not my reward and source of happiness. What will replace it? How will I feel as great a sense of accomplishment? I really don't want to become a total bodybuilder high intensity fitness-dude who is all about himself. There are limits. Even to what I want in terms of progress. I think there will be a point where I will reach ENOUGH. I am having trouble envisioning that. I am having trouble understanding how I keep going when there is no new thing - when I am at ENOUGH. Enough weight loss. Enough fitness. Enough health. Enough happiness. I want balance in my life. I am worried if I get it (ENOUGH and balance), I will have a hard time staying motivated and rewarded and psyched to maintain there. I hope not.

For now, I am taking it a day at a time. I will figure out tomorrow when I get there. I will celebrate and dance and laugh and whoop it up when I hit new lows. I got a long way to go yet, and it will take some time to get there. To ENOUGH.