Whose Weight Are You REALLY Carrying?
I was reading the September issue of Essence where our very own Phylicia Rashad is in an article titled “I Did It for Me”. She talks about seeing herself on reruns of The Cosby Show, “I was so LIGHT and I”m not just talking about being slender”. She goes on to say something SO profound (at least to me) and here it goes…
“I looked at that screen and remembered how I wasn’t carrying anybody’s weight but my own at that time”
It got me thinking….ummm WHOSE weight are we REALLY carrying? Do some of the following sound like familiar “weights”?
1. Using everyone else as the reason we can’t eat a healthy balanced meal. After all….they held me at gunpoint to eat it right?
2. Overextending ourselves to our family and friends and leaving only the leftovers for ourselves which include the highest calorie lowest nutrient foods.
3. Consuming large quantities of unhealthy food because of what someone else said or did or did NOT do, for that matter.
4. “Weight” from the past….all the “should have, wish I would have, why did I, why me” thoughts that keep us in a victim versus victorious mode.
5. Constantly looking at what we don’t have.
6. Expecting someone else to make us happy (i.e. giving all of our power away and not taking responsibility for our own happiness).
7. Eating when hunger isn’t the problem, but more our refusal to use our voice to stand up for ourselves in our lives and constantly making the choice to let the behaviors of others dictate our eating.
8. Not reading the JC manuals, not asking for help from our JC Consultant or Program Director, still doing our modified version on Jenny Craig.
9. Still looking for the “magic bullet” (i.e. that new pill that will speed this up, that new shake that will melt fat away).
10. NOT following the program and then being upset about the lack of progress…and misdirecting that anger towards the program and/or your consultant. Someone wrote on the JC forum “whether I follow the plan or not is 100% up to me”. We can ask for help but we can’t ask anyone to do this for us.
11. Being impatient when challenges/obstacles/plateaus at the scale inevitably come. Deciding to “take a break” because of slow progress only to exchange slow progress for NO progress only to return to the program months later feeling discouraged. Impatience is a very heavy weight!
So ….I am SO PUMPED up on Phylicia’s article, her interview with her sister on Good Morning America on ABC, and with my recent loss of 3.8 pounds bringing my total to 37.2 pounds lost! YAY ME!
I guess in spite of all my stumbles, I’m still hard headed enough to believe that if Phylicia and Valerie can do it then SO CAN I!
If you want what others have you have to be willing to do what others have done to get it . . .
I’m ready to run my race of life carrying ONLY my own weight….how about you? Are you ready to drop ALL the weight that doesn’t belong to you? Here we go….let’s go get it done.
Hope