Why have you been unable to lose the weight? Ask yourself that. Why hasn’t it worked? Reflect on what has gotten in the way of your past weight management efforts. Before you begin any weight-loss plan, you owe it to yourself to start there. Start at the beginning and seek to fully answer the question before diving in with another half-baked solution.
What if I told you your weight problem was more like a heart problem? A problem of love versus ability, and a problem of devotion rather than poor choices. Oh sure, you probably don’t eat the right things all the time. And I know you probably don’t work out as much as you should either. However, to what do you owe the reason that there are many people who are within their normal range who are also guilty of the same things?
I suggest that your heart is much to blame for your continued struggle with weight. Honestly, if I didn’t love food so much, it would have been so easy for me to make the changes I needed to shed my unwanted pounds. So easy. If I didn’t feel that food was what I needed when I became upset, frustrated, or wanted a reward, it would have been simple to "eat when hungry, and stop when satisfied." So simple. And if it was just about calories and grams, I would have had no problem turning down the plate when asked about another portion.
However, this is not news, as most current weight strugglers know that something else is involved. Typically, we often attribute the "something else" to a lack of "willpower" and believe that if we just motivate ourselves enough, we can take the steps we need to make different eating and exercise choices. We declare excitedly that this will be the day I will make better eating choices, and will exercise. However, often, that declaration is met by the barrage of reality and truth, and our weight efforts fail once more.
We blame willpower, laziness, or a busy schedule as the cause of this unique failure and the root of our problem. Wrong diagnosis. What if I told you that your issue was not willpower as much as it is based on connection and relationship?
If I was not so connected to food, I could make the changes I need to make. If I were not so attached to its presence in my life, I could shake off the pressure I feel when it beckons me to consume it outside of hunger or physical necessity. And if it did not love food (the heart)….
Why does the heart matter so much? There are several important reasons:
First, your heart is the most powerful organ in your body. We are well aware that it is responsible for keeping us alive, but also, it often sits at the crossroads of many important decisions we make in our lives. The heart is where our worship begins. It is where we experience love, feel hurt, and make choices that will never cause us to feel certain things ever again.
The heart is also responsible for controlling us. The substance of our hearts affects our choices, decisions, and what we say, and what we do. We believe with our hearts, have hope with our hearts, and have our decisions dictated by what it wants.
In order to lose weight, I needed to love something else. I needed to love someone else. I was speaking to a group of women the other day, and we reflected on how we all needed to "break up" with food. At one point in my life, "breaking up" seemed rather traumatic, and it was easier to just change the subject or talk about another diet plan. However, I could not shake my thoughts that the relationship seemed to be rather abusive. And just like many who struggle with human relationships given the same label, I often found myself going back and forth between wanting to make a new choice. What do you think? What would it be like for you to “break up” with food?
