One day at a time
Let me start this off by letting you all know I’m an alcoholic. Not the “drunk off my face 24/7″ kind of alcoholic, more the, “drink for the wrong reasons and never sure if I’m going to control it kind of alcoholic”. So why am I telling you this? Well because the battle we face is much the same and I think some of the approaches taken to beat acoholism can be applied to weight loss and life in general. The main approach taken is “one day at a time”.
If you think about your end goals, for example, “I’m going to lose 50lbs and look like this six months from now!” that to me sounds like a big goal, one that requires the means to be thought out, “to achieve my goal I’m going to gym everyday for six months and I’m never going to eat fatty food again!” Just thinking about your life over the next six months seems daunting and failure to go to the gym everyday and the odd slip up on the diet can make you feel like a failure.
This is where the one day at a time approach helps me. I don’t think about the week to come, or tomorrow, just today. I say “today I’m going to do these things which are good for me, and I will not do these things which are bad for me. Tomorrow is another day and I’ll worry about that when it comes.” Thinking this way makes the task at hand much smaller, easier to handle and far less daunting. You’re not going to lose 50lbs today, so that target no longer exists, however your target of doing something about your weight can be reached as you do what you set out to do. The weight loss will take care of itself. Thinking on this smaller scale can, I think, help avoid the downers when weight loss doesn’t occur as fast as you hoped and helps create good habits as you continue to go day to day.
Don’t get me wrong, you still need a goal, but climbing an ant hill seems so much more achievable than climbing Everest to me.
I hope this makes sense! but if it doesn’t, well my tummy has gotten a little smaller since I stopped drinking… :D Now I KNOW that makes sense!
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Thank you for sharing your story.
Great post.
Having grown up in a house with chain-smoking, “social” alcoholic dad, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to compare his struggles with both of those addictions and my own with food. I neither smoke nor drink to excess. There are plenty of similarities, both in the way we lean on our vices as well as our inability to control them.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The only day that matters when you’re dealing with lifestyle changes as great as these is today. use the successes of yesterday and the goals of tomorrow DRIVE your efforts today, but really all that matters is how you’re doing right now.
Again, thanks for sharing your story.
Thank you so much for that reminder.
We only get one day at a time anyway. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is a dream. Do your best to live in the moment. The rest will take care of its self. Wouln’t life be a huge mountain to climb if we didn’t take it one day at a time? I learned the hard way…don’t we all? Best to you, Marge
I think you have great insight! One day at a time makes the world an easier place to live and makes our goals that much easier to reach. Thanks for reminding all of us that we have to live for the moment!
It makes perfect sense. I had a post not long ago talking about food addiction. They are indeed similar.
Thanks for you insight.