Wrong Thought Pattern #11--Why Bother If . . . ?

After losing 40 pounds, you'd think the last 10 I need to lose would be no problem. Not so.

The first 40 came off when I was going down on a certain medication. Going off had me experiencing plain old drug withdrawals, and being nauseated for weeks made dieting a rather simple affair, with self-control aided by my queasy stomach.

Now, however, without that unpleasant motivation to eat less, I'm finding myself not only stuck when it comes to dieting, but rolling backward.

Part of my problem is the blood sugar issue. Whenever my activity level increases, I have to eat more to be able to keep going. So I tend to think that I'll diet in between those larger activity times.

Unfortunately, I tend to space out the larger activity times, leaving only small windows of time between them, and if there's only so much time, I tend to tell myself it's not worth bothering to try to diet, when another activity time is coming up.

For example, my parents were just here for a visit, which was great. That was like a vacation, so I stopped even trying to diet. Now I have nearly two weeks before a writing conference I'm going to. At the writing conference, I'm going to be eating a lot more because it is a very intense schedule, and I need to be able to keep up. Not to mention tomorrow is Valentine's Day and we're going to have a special meal (Pizza--yeah, doesn't seem very romantic, but it was a family decision =)). So between Wed. and next Thurs. is only about a week, and what's the point of even trying to diet for such a short time, when it's all going to be wasted next weekend anyway?

This sounds reasonable, but isn't really a good way to think. For one, because if I act accordingly, I'll never diet during the down times, and only gain more and more weight during the active times. And, excusing myself is really just an . . . excuse. It's a way to allow myself to not have self-control because it's too hard, it's too uncomfortable, I just don't like it.

Below are two things on this subject that have stuck with me:

1. How you live your day is how you live your life.
2. Your life is just a day repeated.

I want to find some reason to not have to do the difficult thing today. I want to do it later--it will be easier to diet two weeks from now when there isn't so much going on (though by then there will be something else going on, another reason to not diet that day, too). However, the more I choose to not do the hard thing today, the more "todays" pass by, and my life shows the results of my today choices.

Therefore, I need to do the right thing today. My life now shows the result of many "today" choices made over many, many yesterdays. If I really want something for my future, today is the day to start making it happen.



Galatians 5:22  But the fruit of the Spirit is . . . self-control.