Way back in ancient times (well, as far back as last year when I first joined Weight Watchers), I had a lovely fantasy. There would be me at Goal Weight. I'm sure I looked good, although I couldn't quite picture it. I was confident and smooth, but I couldn't quite picture it. I was most likely wearing a small size jeans. And I'd be eating as much chocolate layer cake as I wanted to...oh, and lasagna and maybe something else extra tasty. Because thin people were people who could eat this stuff and still be thin.
Well...there's a reason WW is a gradual weight loss program. Because while you're busy changing your habits around food and exercise, you have enough time for your attitude to catch up, too. To wit:
When I hit my goal weight at WW, I jumped up and down like a maniac at the scale. And then I went home, proud and fulfilled by my progress. I wondered, what can I do to celebrate? I thought back to the "old me" and that fuzzy dream of one day being a "normal" size. And being able to eat all the "good stuff" without limit.
And you know what I realized? That the real victory wasn't that I was in the "thin club" and could now eat all the stuff to which the members of that secret society were privy. The real victory was somewhere else--somewhere that I had not expected at all. There I was at my goal weight and the reason I was there is that the idea of celebrating with a ton of cake or a sheet of lasagna seemed utterly empty to me. Why in God's name would I want to do that?
Aha! That was the secret. It wasn't that my thin colleagues could eat like lunatics. It was that they didn't want to do so as a way of celebrating, coping with or cheering their lives. The real victory happened when my former idea of "celebration" was as long gone and senseless to me as that elusive thin-person once seemed. Touche!
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