Body vs. Mind

I've noticed something happening within myself. My mind and my body are on two different pages. And yes, this will shock all of you, but it surfaces when chocolate is involved.

I have cut down considerably on the amount of sweets in general that I eat. I really don't have much processed sugar at all any more. And "they", whoever "they" are (I'm assuming its experts in the field), say that once you cut down on your sugar intake, your body will not crave sugar as much. So the more you eat sugar, the more your body wants it, and the less you eat sugar, the less your body wants it. I have found this to be true most of the time except when it comes to a decadent chocolate dessert - my mind still wants it regardless of how my body feels. And so the battle begins, who will win? The body or the mind?

The other night I went out with some friends. They had a drink and a bite to eat. Since I had already eaten dinner, I chose to treat myself to a special chocolate dessert. There were a few good choices, including a big chocolate cake, but I finally settled on the chocolate mousse - thinking it was a better choice as far as portion size. I started eating the chocolate mousse, which was delicious, but then about half way through, my body started "talking" to me. It was saying "enough sugar", you know that feeling you get when you've had too much sugar, that's how I started to feel. But there were my eyes looking at about half of the chocolate mousse still in the dish and my brain said, "you can't waste that chocolate mousse, it's too precious, how often do you get to eat chocolate mousse?" Guess who won????

It wasn't my body (who was clearly speaking to me), it was my mind. Now what I probably should have done was excuse myself to the ladies room and called Rachel - my personal trainer/nutrition coach - and asked for a little help. She probably would have told me to ask for a little dish to take the rest home. I probably would have said there's not enough left to take home, I should just eat it. Rachel would have said it doesn't matter, take it home anyway and then you are not denying yourself of it or "wasting" it, you can have it later. And this advice probably would have worked, because it usually does work out when I call her. But none of that happened. I never called/texted her because my struggle wasn't with over-indulging on my calories (I was within my calorie count for the day), it was a struggle between what my body wanted and what my mind wanted. This was something new.

The point I am trying to make is having support and calling on that support when you need it is really key when trying to lose weight. Looking back, I should have made a quick phone call to Rachel, but since this was such a "new" struggle I was going through, it really didn't occur to me (or perhaps my mind didn't want to hear what she was going to say). So find someone you can call when you are trying to lose weight and get into a fitness routine. Find someone who will push you in the right direction even if that's not what you want to hear at the moment. It can be a friend, a personal trainer, a workout buddy, anyone who you think will keep you on the right track and tell you what you need to hear, which is not necessarily what you want to hear.

Yes, I ate the rest of that mousse even though I was "sugared out". I know, you're probably thinking this is not a good weight loss story because "the bad guys" won, and it's true they did. But I share this story for two reasons.

One, is because weight loss is full of triumphs and tribulations, steps forward and steps backward, struggles between body and mind, a constant "discovery" process. It is a learning game in so many different ways. So chalk up those setbacks to a learning experience and maybe next time the outcome will be different. I know next time I'm having a battle between the body and the mind, I will call Rachel because I have discovered something new about myself.

The other reason I share this with you is to show you the power of the mind. My mind overruled my body - the physical symptoms I was feeling - that's pretty amazing. If we can channel our mind in the right direction, we are capable of amazing things.