This past weekend, I led a wonderful seminar full of amazing women learning about permanent weight loss for the first time in their lives. Many of them had been focusing on food as a solution to excess weight for 10, 20, 30 years! It’s funny how we tend to doubt ourselves, rather than the methods foisted on us by commercial weight loss, doctors, trainers, diet gurus, etc. So often, we naturally assume we did “something wrong” when the diets fail time after time.
But this workshop was about changing our minds! And we did! Mindgames, be gone! We witnessed some major change to thinking patterns that get in the way of progress towards a healthy weight.
March 13 also officially marked my own 10th anniversary at my current weight after losing over 70 lbs. I very much wanted to be teaching others on this anniversary so the timing was perfect. I was looking forward to raising a glass of champagne with friends and clients but, when the time actually came, I was oddly emotional.
I realized, when talking to the seminar group just before the reception, that my voice kept cracking. Several of them were surprised.
I was so touched when people (many I didn’t know before that party) came up to me and told me they had never met anyone who’d sustained their weight loss for 10 years and they just wanted to meet me! Every one of them had convinced themselves it never happens!
The past ten years have been interesting ones for me. I’ve been through some big upheavals in my life. There have been many challenges, like the phone call on 9.11.01 which called my husband into active duty and ultimately overseas to the middle east.
The day he left, I remember coming home from the airport with my tiny son and firing up the computer. I made myself a new chart to keep tabs on my weight even more closely… I was determined I’d stay the same weight despite a daunting challenge in front of me: taking care of my son, keeping my home, working two jobs (I had just started my coaching business and my husband lost A LOT of salary when he was activated so I’d taken on another full-time job), and living in the Midwest where I had no family to support me.
Despite my research that put the medical marker for permanent weight loss at 5 years, I have to say, the 5-year mark didn’t mean a lot to me. I still hadn’t really claimed or owned my weight loss. It’s only been in the past year or so, I can really say it’s mine.
Forever.
I know it.
My point is – our lives unfold in unique ways. You may realize full, complete “ownership” of your weight loss at any point. It’s a feeling you cannot mistake for anything else in this world!
If a healthy weight is your goal, I wish it for you.
It is heaven.
It is peace.
I deserve it and so do you.
This blog was featured on “Prevention Not Prescriptions!” Find out more and share information for “Prevention Not Prescriptions” at The Kathleen Show here.
Congratulations Pat on 10 years! It is really impressive and gives me hope that I too can claim my healthy weight forever. Keep up the good work of inspiring so many people, including me.
You are an inspiration and a genuinely nice person. Thank you for pursuing your life’s work to help people reach the same goal. There must be a ginormous amount of satisfaction knowing that your “job” truly makes a difference in so many lives in a profoundly positive way!!
Thanks Sheryl! I’m on a mission to spread the word about permanent weight loss and you are right, it is very very rewarding. Thanks for reading!
Thank you for sharing YOU with me! I really enjoyed your article. Congratulations on keeping your weight off permanently. I have no doubt that you mean it!
HUGS
Bonnie