It's NOT about Control!
Hey Y'all!! I've been really into the whole boxing theme lately haven't I? I just dig it, I really enjoyed doing Cathe's MMA DVD recently and I am really looking forward to getting a punching bag stand from Sears real soon and taking out my aggression on it. (Just haven't decided which model I'm gonna go for yet. But I do want some gloves to protect my manicure. Don't judge me. I also think I'll FEEL more badass with big gloves on....agree?)
Anyway.
The title of today's post is "It's Not About Control"-- because, as I'm channeling Oprah/Dr. Phil learning by reading and working with my "She's the Bomb" therapist, I'm seeing how messed up my mindset has been- not only recently in my "Bracket Years" but also a large portion of my life. MANY OF US have jacked mindsets about food or diet, and they can get extreme if we keep letting them run wild. I'm DONE with that...but it will be a work in progress. One of the books I'm reading now is by author Geneen Roth who is FREAKING EXCELLENT about women and food issues- emotional eating, bingeing or extreme dieting......anyway, I read "Lost and Found" and now I'm reading "Breaking Free From Emotional Eating" and it is EYE OPENING. She makes this point that when we restrict ourselves so much with extreme dieting, we are essentially admitting that we can't TRUST OURSELVES to just listen to our body. We think that we must CONTROL our body and our eating because-- if we really just "went with what sounds good" or "ate when we were hungry, and ate what we wanted"-- we'd be OUT OF CONTROL. We'd PIG OUT! Right? We'd eat Krispy Kremes all day long. We'd eat pizza and fries and -- you name it, jars of Nutella and such.
How many times have you said something like, "I can't keep that in the house, I know I don't trust myself." or, "I can't eat just a serving of that, I have no control...."-- what you are saying again and again is that you don't trust yourself. Your body is somehow this crazed animal waiting to be let loose from a cage. Is THAT how you want to treat yourself? Would you treat another human being that way? Your husband? Your daughter? Your mom? Would you say, "Daughter, I'm not keeping any carbs in the house or wine or sugar or white flour or pasta because if I walk out of this room, you will eat yourself into oblivion because you can't control yourself." I doubt it. BUT, this is how we treat ourselves when we have negative mindsets and obsessive dieting based on denial and RULES.
We think that slim/healthy/buff/fit people ONLY eat small meals and NEVER eat cookies or cake or drink alcohol or have CARBS. Right? And so, we feel that the ONLY way to get slim/healthy/buff/fit is to eliminate all the things that cause us not to be. Because, we clearly can't control ourselves right? WRONG. But, if you have ever found yourself comparing what you ate to your friend's plate or your mom's plate or your sister's plate and thinking "She's slimmer than me and look what I'm eating...I shouldn't be eating this because I'm not slim/healthy/buff/fit yet.", then you are on that path that is MESSED UP THINKING LANE. Time to turn around and take another path. When you have this image in your head that only slim/healthy/buff/fit people eat a grapefruit or NOTHING for breakfast, for example, and you then start HIDING what you really eat and in front of others you eat the plain lettuce or egg whites only-- then you are daily reinforcing this idea that you don't trust yourself, that you have behaviors that are wrong and need to be hidden. You create an inner atmosphere of shame and guilt that shouldn't be there-- this isn't CONSCIOUS, ok? But-- think about how you've eaten or dieted in the past....this is really helping me and I know it can help a LOT of you too!
It's time to get to a place where we TRUST OURSELVES COMPLETELY. Do you say, "Oh I can't put myself in a room with a match and gasoline, I'd set myself on fire and die!". I doubt it. So why do you think you CANNOT CONTROL HOW MUCH FOOD YOU PUT IN YOUR BODY? Because you (could be) are setting up crazy rules and restrictions and they are sooo unnatural that you inevitably want to become uncaged, and so you do it in private and then feel bad and feel guilty so you punish yourself MORE and then the cycle repeats.
She looks like she is loving life right? I'm gonna tell you this--- even before the current time when I'm finally FINALLY figuring out my messed up dieting thoughts-- I knew that the most fit/buff/healthy people were NEVER EVER EVER the most diet obsessed. EVER. In fact, the MOST fit/buff/healthy people in some way were the most relaxed about diet and exercise. PLEASE NOTE--- I'm not saying they eat crap food all day. I'm saying they were doing all of it- eating and working out -- FOR THE RIGHT REASONS. They had breakfast BECAUSE THEY WERE HUNGRY. They ate after their workout because their body needed it. They drank beers on vacation because they were on vacation and wanted to chill out.
Think about the MOST (other than those in the midst of competing for fitness/figure/bodybuilding events) healthy/fit/buff peeps you know. Do they binge/purge/diet like a freak? I have no doubt that SOME out there do, but most have either always been comfortable eating like a normal person and they workout because they love the feeling, not what pounds it makes them lose.
Getting RIGHT in the head means NOT beating yourself up all the time. It means NOT putting a cage around yourself, figuratively speaking, and trying to CONTROL yourself like you are an animal. It WILL be a journey for many of us that have been in this warped diet mindset-- I have no doubt it's gonna take me a while, but the more I'm recognizing the RIDICULOUSNESS of my thought patterns in the past, the more I am anxious to keep making progress on deleting them.
It's time to start HUGGING ourselves. When you are down, how good does a hug feel from someone you love? When you see someone down- you give them a hug. Let's-- give ourselves daily encouragement, not just to others. Let's start treating ourselves with trust and peace and love?? This is when we can start to change-- permanently. I can feel changes within me, compounding, on a daily basis. I have a ways to go but I'm making steps every single day....and I am sharing with YOU all what I'm learning because I know many of you have similar struggles. GOOD NEWS----- you have all the power in the world to make it all better.
Now--- to end today's OOHHHMMM moment, here is my sweatfest vlog from yesterday-- after I did the Brazil Butt Lift Workout- OMG!! SOOOO awesome!! It was so sweaty and awesome I had to shoot a vlog to show the level of sweaty-goodness. Enjoy at your leisure- I'll be back tomorrow.
Cathe MMA Boxing, MMA
Reader Comments (8)
You know what I have to say to this post. I was holding the hand of the psycho diet mindset just like I will hold the hand of the Kelly of today that continues to increase her awareness to treat herself better because she deserves it. HUGS ;) xoxo
;-) XOXO
Awesome post, Kelly. Definitely left me thinking about some of my own personal control issues that I've struggled with. Thankfully, I've made HUGE progress with many of them, but they still linger.
By the way, your vlog totally has me wanting to try that video now!
Courtney, I think we ALL have some kind of inner "struggle" we can become better with-- it's so freeing for me to finally like, SEE IT and be able to move on and let go. AHHHH
Yea, the BBL guy is ANNOYING but he makes you laugh while you are sweating!!!
I agree with Courtney – awesome post, Kelly.
As you probably know, I’d like to comment on almost each sentence of it, so it’s really hard for me to be brief now.
“Let's start treating ourselves with trust and peace and love??”
Absolutely agree!
“I also think I'll FEEL more badass with big gloves on....agree?”
Well, I don’t know how you’ll FEEL, but I am sure you’ll LOOK more funny than badass ;-)
oh Martin, you KNOW I'd look menacing with big fighter gloves on!! LOL haha not really I agree hehehe
It has been a long road of learning to trust myself and letting my nutrition come naturally to me. I still struggle with my body not looking the way I want it to some days, but for the most part, I am so much happier with my pact to be nice to myself that it totally outweighs the other stuff. I DO trust the process now and whether I naturally hit my true weight/body shape in a month or in 5 years, it is such a comforting feeling to know that I am doing it in a way that is pleasing to both me and God and is impacting my children in a good way. Since throwing out the "rules" and the scale and sometimes the mirror ;-) I am a MUCH happier person. Getting to my "perfect" body by being mean to myself via deprivation or badmouthing my body was in no way making a positive impact on my life. It's been over a year in the process, and some days are hard and I hear myself thinking "go on a diet" in my head, but I'm now able to force those thoughts out quite easily.
Great post!!!
Julie-- love what you wrote. So true. I'm working on all of that...wish I could push a button and be different right away, ;-)