The Secret to Weighty Resolutions

The way to keep a resolution or change a habit – any resolution or habit – is to discover what belief or lies you’re telling yourself that’s keeping you in a bad habit.

Then change that thought. Change your belief

If you can change your thinking about something you can DO anything.

Yesterday, we talked about my belief that organization was a waste of time and money. Changing that belief equated to my willingness to spend the time and money on the tools to become more organized.

Two years ago I held a belief that exercise was too much effort and it was somehow a treat or a luxury to lay on the couch eating a bag of Cheetos.

Only facing a scale that said my 5′4″ self was in danger of crossing the threshold of 200 pounds was enough to make me challenge that belief.

My lifestyle habits (I smoked too) were the epitome of self-destruction not self-love. I only believed wrongly that I was acting lovingly.

I had to change my belief to “I am worth the effort of exercise and exercise is an act of self-love.”

But, I had my limits. No running and no counting calories.

And so I got down to 166 and stayed there for one year. Until Christmas and then I gained 1.8 pounds. I continued to exercise, but not religiously because I let “life” interfere with my plans and was too willing to be happy about excuses.

Look, I don’t want to be “moderately overweight.” I want to get to a “normal healthy weight” and I want to get low enough that if I gain 5 pounds during the holidays or during an especially stressful time in my life I want to still be in the “normal healthy weight” category.

Now, I know myself. I know that the belief that “running is too hard and counting calories is too anal retentive” is holding me back.

But, the more I learn about nutrition – the more I realize how just plain ignorant I am about what I put in my mouth.

Counting calories for one week will teach you more about what your eating habits ACTUALLY are, than pretending you are eating healthy foods and not knowing what the heck is in them.

I’ll say this without getting into self-loathing about my moderate eating habits. We’ve discovered more than 4 basic food groups comprise healthy eating, which is what they were teaching in 1978 when I was in school.

I do not have a clear idea about what measure of calories are in food. I know this because I started my New Year’s Resolutions on Christmas Day. I wanted to know I wasn’t going to fail before I committed. Besides, there is no time but NOW in which to act.

I needed a baseline from which to objectively look at my habits. So, I logged onto the time-consuming About.com Calorie Counter and started logging what foods cross my lips.

You can’t imagine my shock that one small piece of my mother’s peanut brittle is over 450 calories! Dude, I was just absentmindedly snacking on those. Knowing that made me want that brittle so much less. Who knew that a cup of basmati rice has 320 calories? Who knew coconut milk gets an F nutritionally?

In 2009 I won’t be going on a “diet.” Diets don’t work right? But, I will be getting honest about what goes in my mouth. I will count calories to educate myself about foods and to make a conscious choice about what I want to eat.

A few weeks ago I wrote about wanting to start running. I mean really running. Like fast and hard. Vigorous exercise. The moderate exercise I’ve been doing is enough to maintain weight – but, I want to lose weight. Then maintain it.

The truth about my exercise habits is that I need to do exercise at the same time every day. I changed my thinking to “I exercise.” When I was losing weight I had access to a gym with childcare and I went every morning. Well, here there is no daytime childcare. So, my habits have been random and inconsistent.

My belief was that “I can’t get up at 6 am and go running before everyone else is out of bed. It’s too hard.”

I’m changing that thought, that belief, to “thousands of moms – including me – get up before the family and go running.

I started the running on Christmas Day. I’m tired, sore and wore out. I love it. It’s exhilarating. It makes me feel like I can do anything I set my mind to. I got the ipod and I’m listening to empowering soulful books and making it my meditation time. The more productive I am the more productive I am.

Besides, my husband took up running and he’s totally lapping my weight loss and fitness level. I hate to be competitive – but, I definitely don’t want to be “the fat slow one” either. I want to run as fast as he and be able to go as far. He whipped it out in 2 months flat! He ran 9 miles full throttle yesterday.

When you break it down my weighty resolution is this: I’m going to be 135 pounds and have run a 5k by 2010. Watch me.

Wanna come?