Remembering to believe in myself

Happy New Year a day in.  It's been great reading peoples reflections on the old year and intentions for 2011.

My low carb eating has been going pretty well.  Friday and Saturday I eased up a bit on the low carb but stayed reasonable with my eating, outside of too many lemon squares on New Year's Eve.  I make kick-ass lemon squares, and apart from the sugar and flour content thought they were a better choice than many other desserts I could have over done.

In reading many late 2010 and early 2011 posts, I find comfort in being somewhere in the middle of the span from amazing success and dismal failure in this endeavor to lose weight and find fitness.  Perspective is important for this blogger...I can get emotionally inflated or devastated when comparing myself to another.  Actually any dabbling with comparing myself with anyone else is futile and self defeating activity.  Either I can feel smug that I didn't gain AS MUCH this year as another, or become mired in self-contempt and self pity in finding myself the lowest form of life when stacked against another.  This truth doesn't just hold true for the blog community...but spans all my day to day interactions.

Yet another concept about living a day at a time that I've learned in AA is to resist at all cost the temptation to compare oneself with anyone else.  Rather, comparing myself to myself is the more accurate gauge of reality when inventorying my progress in any realm.  How am I doing today vs how I was doing last week, or month, or year?  What is better?  What is the same, or worse? Which of my habits affect where I am now? Progress?  Change?  Is my thinking anchored in reality or am I in denial about basic truths about myself?  Now, even this kind of self appraisal can leave one feeling fantastic or craptastic depending on the results of the inventory.  Trust me - craptastic is where I find myself this January 2...weighing more than January 2, 2010 after the ensuing 12 months of the same behaviors over and over while hoping for different results.  But in looking at "MOI" honestly, at least the final tally is a clear picture of myself that is workable - by myself.  When I put myself up against Jane Q Blogger who set out to lose 30 pounds, lost 40 with seemingly little effort and endless enthusiasm and no "issues", my frustration becomes murky and more about "why I'm not like her" rather than accepting myself lock, stock and barrel and determining to work with what and who I am.  The one thing over which I have control is myself and my actions. 

I'm done with with resolutions and list making about all the changes I'm going to make in the new year.  Or for my current round of determination.  Or the newest challenge.  I see clearly that getting whipped into a frenzy of motivation and positivity is no problem for me.  It's the sticking and staying when things get tough.  Or progress is slow.   Or when I'm in a challenge and "keeping up" for awhile, but then starting to fall away when others are making more progress and sticking to their convictions in a way that I can't seem to muster.  There is a fine line between getting fired up and inspired by others' accomplishments and feeling defeated when it seems everyone else is "doing better" in some way.

I need to keep my focus on myself first and foremost.  How many times have you heard a successful weight loss blogger, or a celebrity like Jennifer Hudson who's had amazing success on Weight Watchers say, "if I can do it, anyone can!"  During a WW commercial last week I heard the voice in my mind reply to Jennifer,"well, not anyone...not me apparently."

It really hit me between the eyes when I became aware of that thought the other day - playing like a taped  message from the depths of my unconscious.  That's what jolted me into this whole taking inventory thing...looking at now vs last year.  Last year I was unknowingly between 2 knee surgeries on Jan 2, but my drive to succeed at weight loss was still in gear - fueled by months of steady success and progress - and losing 28 pounds from the previous summer.  I knew I could do it because I'd been doing it.  But over the months of 2010, my belief in myself deteriorated - out of my awareness - to the point where I was answering Jennifer Hudson that of all the "anyones" out there she knew could do this, I was the one who couldn't.

So my main goal/resolution/intention this January 2 is to affirm myself daily, hourly if needed, that I CAN.  That I WANT to.  That I'm GOING to.  I know I can because I have in the past, and the past is a darn good predictor of the future.