Commitment

Why can't I just do this!?? Why is this so hard? I have tried and tried and still I can't break this perpetual cycle of losing and gaining weight! What is the matter with me? I feel like a complete and utter LOSER!!! I have so many other areas in my life that are perfect, I am a professional, and I am a great mother, wife, daughter, sister, and friend! I am successful in so many aspects of my life, but I can't seem to do this!! Why!! I am tired! And I don’t want to fail anymore, I don’t know what is going so wrong, I have tried everything and nothing really works, not really. Almost but then something happens and I am back at square one again. Will I ever be thin?

Well, this has been the theme of the week. Why can't I just commit to myself once and for all? I know exactly what I need to do, I really want to do it but I find myself making one good excuse after another. I see week after week pass and still nothing is happening. I keep fighting with the same 5 to 10 pounds that I have had for the last 4 years until I finally give in and accept who I am and try to be happy with what I look like, but that’s a lie because I can't even look at myself in the mirror without clothes on. Actually, I have stopped looking at the mirror entirely except from the shoulders up. I don’t go on the scale anymore and I tend to always wear sweat pant type of clothing so I don’t have to be reminded that my waist is tight. This shouldn’t be so hard and I deserve more than this, I have worked so hard and I deserve to lose weight and keep it off. I mean really, when is it going to be my turn, it's never my turn.

I will tell you one thing, for the women that are waiting for someone to give them a turn, they will be waiting forever. You get a turn when you take one! Period. Taking our turn does not mean we are taking someone else’s turn, it's just ours and it's been waiting there all the time just waiting for us to take it, that’s how easy it is, ready?

So, what’s the matter? Why isn’t it working? Well, one of the reasons can be easy to explain but difficult to do. But it’s necessary. It's called Commitment! I have a few favorite words, you already know a bunch of them, like longevity and consistency. Now consistency may appear to be similar to commitment but it isn’t actually. Let me explain to you what commitment means to me.

Years ago, growing up, I had no clue as to what commitment meant. Especially how it pertained to me. I think I put up a good front, actually, no one would have said that I had a hard time with commitment but I did and it was a big problem. There didn’t seem to be anything that I did that I ever really finished. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, it just seemed that I had a lot of really good ideas and I would venture off into one, and then for some reason I stopped, usually, I think it was because I had a better idea, at least that what I thought. The funny thing is that I kept doing this until I had half a dozen new and amazing ideas all of which were only partially completed. Losing weight was one of them by the way. Like most of you, I had started and stopped dozens of different diets and then when it got hard or I tripped on something on some path that I was on, I would start another. I didn’t know how to commit to something. Didn’t know what a powerful word that was, what it meant to me, and my ultimate success not only with my weight but in many aspects of my life, this venture here included! When I realized this about myself it really bothered me, I was a lie. All things I said were just words and empty promises to myself that at the time I truly believed. But I did a lot more talking than doing, I always looked busy but I don’t think I ever did anything except spin my wheels.

One day, I remembered a story my father had told me. Actually, I just retold it to one of my favorite clients the other day. He said you have to write about that one, so here I am doing just that. The story is a simple one, but one that has always stayed with me. My father grew up in Barcelona, Spain. He spoke of playing outside as a young teen with his friends. One story he tells is that he and his friends having a competition of seeing which one of them would be able to lift a manhole cover out of the street with only one finger. Please for a second think of how heavy and thick a manhole cover actually is. So, he told me that every day he would go out there and give it a try and every day he couldn’t even budge it. He knew it was possible because he already saw one other kid do it, granted he was much larger than my father, but that didn’t matter to him. So one day after yet once again not being able to lift it, something came to my father. He thought, well Carlos, his name, every day you come back here and you stick your finger into that manhole and pull and every day you fail. But, he thought, you give up at the exact same spot every day. You see, every time he tried to lift he gave it his all, he pulled until it felt as if he would rip that finger right out of the socket and then he would stop, every day he thought he stopped right when it got really hard. Then he thought, what if I tried just one time going past that place. Only once, not very far over but just the tiniest bit. He assumed that the same result would occur but since it was a theory he thought what would be the harm in trying. So he did, and again the same familiar pulling and the same familiar pain in his finger, and then he came to the same place that he has stopped all of the times before, so familiar that he almost did stop but this time he had to reach a little bit further inside himself and he found something he didn’t know was there, the tiniest bit more “umf”. So, he umfed and….did it move? It almost didn’t seem real, but he didn’t stop he just kind of held on, and then something else happened, he felt stronger. Odd, you would have thought he would be in even more pain but he wasn’t because it moved! It did! It wasn’t his imagination and it was only the tiniest bit more of an effort. So, he then had the courage to pull some more, he had a newfound strength, then pride, then, then…he did it! He pulled it off. Who knew it was always right there, but he had always stopped at the same place every time and thought that he had tried all he could and never tried anymore? Who knew it was hardly any more of an effort and he was there. So, that is what I did. And the next time that followed what I did every week with my food and every time I thought I was too hungry, tired, or overwhelmed, I tried just the tinniest bit more and low and behold. I did it and so can you. I just takes commitment! Just Lose it!