The Uphill Battle, Just Keep on Climbing

About a year ago my husband quit smoking.  Thank goodness!  It wasn't easy for him, and I couldn't be more prouder him every single day he goes without a smoke.  During those first few weeks, I tried to be as supportive as possible, but I have never been addicted to nicotine so his struggle was not something I could completely understand.  BUT, I do know something about food addiction.  When I first started on my new healthy lifestyle, I had to get rid of all the junk food that I had been eating.  Everything that was unhealthy went into the trash.  I cleaned out the fridge, the freezers, and the pantry.  At first I felt bad because I had used my husband's hard earned money to buy all that junk food and I felt like I was wasting that money.  But I told myself that I had already wasted it by buying stuff that was slowly killing me.  I always had a problem with wasting food.  If I was eating a bag of Doritos and I got

close the bottom of the bag, and just the crumbs were left.  I would tip the bag into my mouth and finish every last crumb instead of just throwing it away.  Hey, I didn't want to waste food right? And stopping all those bad habits was really hard.  I have been overweight, and it was wreaking havoc on my body.  Now I have been working on losing the weight and yup, it's hard too.  You just have to decide which hard you want.  I can speak from personal experience that at least with losing weight the hard is worth it!  

Another thing that was not easy was quitting sodas, sweet teas, and all those yummy sugary drinks.  I would tell myself that they were poison.  And we don't ingest poison.  After a week the cravings started to go away.  And after about a month I quit craving sodas all together.  In fact after about a month I had a sip of one, and it was the NASTIEST thing ever.  I'm so glad that I was able to quit them.  Sodas are probably one of the worst things you can put into your body.  I know people it's hard to quit them but do it!  It will only take a little while for your body to adjust to the change, and you won't be sabotaging all the hard work you are doing.  And don't think that by choosing diet sodas that you are doing yourself any favors, because diet is even worse than regular.  Just drink
WATER!

Your willpower, your inner strength is like a muscle.  And like any muscle the more you work it the stronger it gets.  I am going to tell you something that you may not want to hear.  When it comes to junk food, yes, you should absolutely deprive yourself.  I have gotten into many discussions over this.  And people will tell you that you shouldn't deprive yourself because it will lead to failure.  But how is it deprivation if it's something that you shouldn't even be consuming?  By not depriving myself, I ate my way up to 280
pounds.  And I will never find myself back at that place ever again.  Another thing that people will tell you is that every once in a while it's okay to go hog wild.  Hey it's your birthday, it only comes once a year, hey it's your significant other's birthday, it only comes once a year, hey it's your kid's birthday it only comes once a year (and what if you have more than one child?), hey it's your anniversary, it only comes once a year, it's Thanksgiving, it's

Christmas, it's Valentine's Day, it's this special day, it's that special day...notice how many times this happens?  And try not to listen when people tell you to go ahead and have a little bit.  They would never tell a recovering alcoholic or a recovering drug addict the same thing.  I know I never told my husband to go ahead and smoke just one cigarette.  A food addiction is the same thing.  I never wanted a little bit, I wanted the biggest piece of chocolate cake I could get.  What you have to do it you need to dig down deep and find that inner strength and work the crap out of that muscle.  I know it's hard, but you can totally do it.  I have faith in you!

About a month after my husband quit smoking he was still having a hard time.  He was thinking about what he had to give up.  The satisfaction from that first inhalation, the high from the nicotine, and so on.  I told him that he was thinking about this process all wrong.  It's the same thing with a healthy lifestyle change.  People tend to focus way too much on what they have to give up.  They have to give up sodas, they have to give up sweets, they have to give up chips, and they have to give up all that junk food.  I told him what I had told myself, you need to focus on what you are gaining instead of what you are giving up.  That junk food is slowly killing you.  It was shortening your life.  What you gain from this journey, far out weighs what you had to give up.  You gain health, energy, and a better quality of life.  I get way more satisfaction from healthy lifestyle, and from hearing my family say they are so proud of me, than I ever did from that bag of chips.

I still get cravings, I'm not sure if they will every truly go away.  There are a few things you can do if you find yourself wanting junk food.   First is: Just don't buy it.  If it's not in the house you can't eat it.  That's what I did.  After I threw away all the junk food, I didn't buy any more.  And after a good long while I allowed myself to have some of the healthier stuff in the house, like the frozen yogurt and the veggie straws.  Because now I know that I can be strong enough to say no.  The second thing you can do is ask yourself why?  Why do I want to eat that?  Then you have to talk to yourself and realize that you don't need that junk food.  A few moments of pleasure are not worth the pain of guilt and regret.  And I had a lot of guilt and regret in the past.  I would eat the king size candy bar, in about a minute, but the guilt would last longer than that.  Another thing I would do is after my daughter went to bed, I would eat the chips that were supposed to be for her school lunches and then run to the store to replace them, like that would make it better.  It never made it okay.  And try not to find comfort in junk food.  It will let you down every time.  The last thing you can do is you find a way to refocus your mind.  Try to distract yourself. Read, workout, get on the computer, find someway to get your mind going in another direction. 

And lastly don't reward yourself with food.  You're not a dog!  Work daily on your goals.  You can't expect to reach them without any effort on your part.  You can either wish for a healthier life, and a fitter body or you can actually work for it.  Only one is going to work though and it's not the first one.  If you haven't done the work then you won't see any results.  But, I know you can accomplish all your goals.  If I can go from eating donuts for breakfast, an entire big grab bad of Hot Cheetos with melty cheese sauce for lunch and then for dinner, a  large coke, a double quarter pounder with cheese, and supersized fries, to making better and healthier choices for myself, then so can you.  I have heard all the excuses, I have used all of them myself.  Once I put them aside and really started to focus on what was most important, which is my health, that's when the weight loss really started to happen.  And you can do the same thing.