Ugh you know what weight loss isn’t? A journey. Or an adventure.
Leaping off the Golden Gate Bridge attached to a bungee cord is adventurous, taking a break from mayonnaise, is not. And so no, I don’t want to join you on your weight loss journey, even my own was pretty boring. What would I get out of joining yours?
See that’s the thing about losing weight, it’s a dull process. It’s passive. It’s the effect of a whole bunch of tiny decisions like, shall I skip the sandwich today? Or, shall I go for a run even though I’m tired, can’t really be bothered and The Pioneer Woman Cooks is on?
Often it feels like you’re just hanging about waiting to “get thin”. I mean sure life carries on in the background, but you live for the weekly loss on the scale, and sorry, but no amount of blogging about how you quickly make a salad of a morning is going to make your weight-loss progress any less of a tedious daily grind.
Except weight loss isn’t really about losing weight. THAT side of things is fucking dull, of course it is, but that’s not where the magic is.
It’s like this – you’re fat when the thought to eat enters your head, and you allow that thought to be real and meaningful and true. You’re thin when the thought to eat enters your head, but you remember you are merely a hollow vessel through which thought flows, and therefore that particular “eating thought” means nothing.
Becoming that hollow vessel or identifying more and more as that hollow vessel, rather than as the thoughts that flow through it, is a magical practice. And THIS is the magical part. This part is active. This part is not passive and it’s certainly not boring. Furthermore, it’s a skill that once mastered will do more for you than shrink the size of your ass.
Once you see weight-loss in this light – as it truly is – it’s hard to be anything other than bursting with joy, happiness, excitement and motivation all the time. Every time you successfully allow an eating thought to pass without making a grab for it and labelling it as true, you realise how powerful you’re becoming and it occurs to you what this is going to mean for all the other parts of your life too. Day by day, moment by moment, those dreams you have of becoming a wildly successful actor / doctor / rodeo cowboy start to NOT seem so far-fetched. And all because you were able to easily and successfully pass on the potato salad!.
So, if you are bored of this whole weight-loss “thang” then I’m afraid you’re doing it wrong. You must be embroiled in a cat and mouse game chasing numbers on the scale and the chances of long term success are slimmer than your waist is ever going to be. The reality is there’s nothing passive about consciously rewiring your brain away from food being something that matters – and that’s the key to the kingdom right there.
So I can assure you, it’s not a blog chronicallying your “mis-adventures” with quinoa (you crazy diamond) that’s going to make you less bored pursuing this goal, it’s a change in purpose that you need.
And when you see that weight-loss isn’t really about weight-loss? You can consider that purpose changed.
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