Weight Loss Is All A Matter Of Perspective
I was driving in my car yesterday on the way to church with my wife Christine when we passed by a gas station with a new sign featuring big bold numbers showing the current price of gasoline. If you haven't noticed lately, gas prices have fallen significantly and it's a welcome relief to those of us who are pinching pennies to make our budget work. That would be most of us these days! :)
As we passed by the store, I mentioned to Christine how good it was to see gas prices DOWN in the $2.30 range again. She immediately looked right at me with laughter in her voice and said, "Now that's funny hearing you say 'down in the $2.30 range' now when last year $2.30 was sky high to you." I told her my perspective must have changed since I had become accustomed to seeing higher gas prices.
So that got me to thinking about weight loss (yes, everything sooner or later becomes an analogy for me...that's just the way my brain works!). Don't we have the same kind of perspective when it comes to our weight loss objectives? When I weighed over 400 pounds, the thought of being 300 pounds was a VERY good thing that I would desperately attempt to strive for. But now that I weigh 230, that same weight of 300 pounds would be awful because it would mean a 70-pound weight gain!
Oh, how our perspective can change over time!
The lesson here is to always be aware that your weight loss perspective will be determined by where you are at the present time. If you weigh 350 pounds, then getting down to 250 is a great goal for you. But then if you reach 250, try to allow your perspective to change and contemplate losing maybe another 50 pounds to get down to 200 pounds.
This is exactly what happened to me a couple of months ago. When I lost my 180 pounds in 2004 to get down to 230 pounds, the thrill of reaching this goal was enough to make me become complacent in my weight loss and to keep that same perspective I had about my weight when I weighed 410 pounds. The only problem is I'm NOT 410 pounds anymore.
As a result of this shift in my thinking as well as a slight 10-pound weight gain, I decided it was time to start losing weight again. That is why I began my "30-In-30" Low-Carb Weight Loss Challenge on August 1, 2006 to lose another 30 pounds in 30 weeks. The thought of losing weight again was kinda strange this time since I already lost a bunch of weight before and kept it off for the most part.
But my perspective has changed and 230 pounds isn't low enough for me anymore. When I weighed 410, the thought of being 230 pounds was just a dream for me to attain at some point in the distant future. But I got there in one year! However, now that I've remained around 230-240 for a couple of years, I have come to realize that my weight probably needs to be a little lower. So my new weight loss goal of 210 is the right perspective for me to have in the here and now.
When I reach 210 pounds (and I WILL!), it is quite possible that I will need to shift my perspective yet again to maybe rethink about going below 200 pounds. Who knows? But I'm not there yet so it's a moot point to even talk about it right now. The magic number I have set my sights on is 210 and that's exactly where I'm aiming.
So how's your weight loss perspective? Have you reached a point where you think you need to be with your weight? If you have been at your current weight for any extended period of time, then let me encourage you to evaluate whether you need a perspective change to possibly lose a few more pounds. I'm not saying that you WILL need to lose weight, but just take a look at your situation to see what is right for you.
Has anyone else experienced this perspective change in their own weight loss? Click on the comments link below to share your thoughts.
As we passed by the store, I mentioned to Christine how good it was to see gas prices DOWN in the $2.30 range again. She immediately looked right at me with laughter in her voice and said, "Now that's funny hearing you say 'down in the $2.30 range' now when last year $2.30 was sky high to you." I told her my perspective must have changed since I had become accustomed to seeing higher gas prices.
So that got me to thinking about weight loss (yes, everything sooner or later becomes an analogy for me...that's just the way my brain works!). Don't we have the same kind of perspective when it comes to our weight loss objectives? When I weighed over 400 pounds, the thought of being 300 pounds was a VERY good thing that I would desperately attempt to strive for. But now that I weigh 230, that same weight of 300 pounds would be awful because it would mean a 70-pound weight gain!
Oh, how our perspective can change over time!
The lesson here is to always be aware that your weight loss perspective will be determined by where you are at the present time. If you weigh 350 pounds, then getting down to 250 is a great goal for you. But then if you reach 250, try to allow your perspective to change and contemplate losing maybe another 50 pounds to get down to 200 pounds.
This is exactly what happened to me a couple of months ago. When I lost my 180 pounds in 2004 to get down to 230 pounds, the thrill of reaching this goal was enough to make me become complacent in my weight loss and to keep that same perspective I had about my weight when I weighed 410 pounds. The only problem is I'm NOT 410 pounds anymore.
As a result of this shift in my thinking as well as a slight 10-pound weight gain, I decided it was time to start losing weight again. That is why I began my "30-In-30" Low-Carb Weight Loss Challenge on August 1, 2006 to lose another 30 pounds in 30 weeks. The thought of losing weight again was kinda strange this time since I already lost a bunch of weight before and kept it off for the most part.
But my perspective has changed and 230 pounds isn't low enough for me anymore. When I weighed 410, the thought of being 230 pounds was just a dream for me to attain at some point in the distant future. But I got there in one year! However, now that I've remained around 230-240 for a couple of years, I have come to realize that my weight probably needs to be a little lower. So my new weight loss goal of 210 is the right perspective for me to have in the here and now.
When I reach 210 pounds (and I WILL!), it is quite possible that I will need to shift my perspective yet again to maybe rethink about going below 200 pounds. Who knows? But I'm not there yet so it's a moot point to even talk about it right now. The magic number I have set my sights on is 210 and that's exactly where I'm aiming.
So how's your weight loss perspective? Have you reached a point where you think you need to be with your weight? If you have been at your current weight for any extended period of time, then let me encourage you to evaluate whether you need a perspective change to possibly lose a few more pounds. I'm not saying that you WILL need to lose weight, but just take a look at your situation to see what is right for you.
Has anyone else experienced this perspective change in their own weight loss? Click on the comments link below to share your thoughts.
Labels: inspiration, motivation, perspective, weight, weight loss
posted by Jimmy Moore at
9/04/2006 09:21:00 PM
3 Comments:
JImmy, You can do it!
I think you are right about perspective. I have this narrow vision sometimes too.
Dave
Yep, it's all about perspective. But isn't it just wonderful to know that you are in full control of your weight and indeed are able to lose some more if you want to? What a wonderful diet! To me, that is one of the most fantastic properties of low-carb dieting. You don't need to try to lose weight, you simply decide to lose it and then do it! This is, in my view, one the many incomparable advantages of a truly intelligent, scientific way of eating - as is the Atkins diet.
Fascinating, what I read about by Regina Wilshire over at www.lowcarbnewsline.com. Sounds like there may be some leads here for more than just dieting – perhaps answers to the worldwide obesity epidemic of our times. We've been talking about things like high-fructose corn syrup, refined starches and sugars, and trans fats for some time, but our enormous ingestion of Omega-6s is something many people have no clue about. If it turns out that the huge amount of Omega-6s in modern diets is key, we'll have our work cut out for us – not just in advising the population, but we'll have the food processing industry and agribusiness calling us communists!
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