Weight Loss - On Paper

Winning After Losing: Keep Off the Weight You've Lost - Forever
by Stacey Halprin

(Page 4 of 7)

One activity that is really healthy for everybody is writing in a journal. Amy explains, "Journaling offers a variety of benefits, but one of the most important is that by writing down your thoughts and feelings you are giving yourself credit as being a valid audience. Many people think, 'Why write in a journal? I'm the only one who's ever going to read it. Who cares what I have to say?' But the act of writing and reading what you've written can be very healing, especially if you're someone who struggles to identify what you're feeling or why you're feeling it. Journal writing is a great tool in learning to better understand your emotions and define what you're struggling with and what's bothering you."

She says, "Journaling can also be a very helpful delay strategy if you feel tempted to overeat or to eat something that you know isn't a good choice. This is particularly true if you have a sense that you're not physically hungry, but are emotionally hungry, and don't know what to do. If you can delay your snack by writing in your journal for ten minutes before you go to the refrigerator or cabinet, you give yourself the opportunity to address the emotional state that you might not be in touch with and there's a good chance that you'll decide you don't want that snack after all. Putting your thoughts and emotions down on paper can also give you a fresh perspective in figuring out what might be upsetting you or causing you to feel guilty, afraid, or stressed out. It also serves as a record of how you're changing and the progress that you're making. If you're stuck in a rut, it's a really good way to identify what's going on, how you're feeling about it, and what you want to change. Lots of my patients tell me how rewarding it is to look back through their journals and see that they have accomplished many of the things they set out to do-both big and small."

Journaling is also a great way to validate yourself. The support and understanding that you got when you were losing weight can quickly disappear after you reach your goal weight because people think the struggle is over. So you have to be willing to ask for what you need and you have to be able to take care of some of your own need to be validated. The unfortunate truth is that if you don't believe you deserve validation and are unwilling to validate yourself, it's much harder to get it from other people.

Out Loud

Amy explains, "When you lose weight, it's common for other people in your life to have feelings of envy that make it difficult for them to listen to you talk about your ongoing struggles. Not only is it sometimes hard for them to hear your issues, but it also makes them say things in response to you that may be unsupportive or even offensive. If you're talking to people who aren't getting your issues, it's important to resist the idea that your issues are invalid so you don't give up trying to communicate. What you need to do is find one person who understands you and talk with him or her about your struggles and about the others who don't understand you." If you can't find someone who really understands you in your circle of family and friends, I hope you will go to a therapist or join a support group. If there's no one you can openly talk to who can understand your struggles, it makes your challenges that much more difficult. It's like trying to climb a mountain for the first time without a guide.

Whenever you make big changes in your life or go through a significant transformation, it's natural to leave some of your past behind, including some of your old relationships. If someone is pulling you down, you owe it to yourself to cut those strings. On the other hand, if there are old friends or family members whom you don't really click with anymore, but you still love them and want to keep them in your lives, there are things you can do to protect yourself from their negative influences and still maintain or even help the relationship grow in a different direction. (In chapter 3, you'll learn how to introduce your significant other, friends, and family to the new you.)

Meanwhile, a therapist or support group can help you figure out what you're feeling and how to deal with the people in your life who don't understand what you're going through. Amy says, "They can help you to articulate what your issues are and help you figure out whether you're doing a great job of communicating and the other people are just unable to be supportive or whether you're communicating in a way that's difficult for others to hear. There are many levels of communication skills, so it might be that you have a deficit in your communication skill set, or it might be that the listeners have a deficit."

Most people who lose weight get a lot of unsolicited feedback-both positive and negative. So it's important to learn how to state your position clearly and in a way that protects your own boundaries. At first you might feel like you're being rude when you ask people not to give you advice you didn't ask for, but learning to assert yourself in this way can make all the difference. Most of the time people think they're being helpful, and you have every right to let them know if they're not.

Here are some examples of unsolicited advice that might sound familiar:

"I know you like diet soda, but you'd probably feel a lot better if you drank more water instead."

"Now that you've lost weight, you could really show off your figure better if you wore different types of clothes. I'd be happy to go shopping with you."

You can establish safe boundaries by saying something like, "I appreciate that you want to help me, but I'm not open to feedback about that," or "I would rather not talk about that." If you don't feel like you deserve your own privacy and personal space, you can end up feeling very vulnerable. Feeling vulnerable can make you feel out of control and less able to stand up for yourself instead of feeling good about who you are and what you've accomplished.

About the Author

Stacey Halprin lives in New York City.