Recovery Meditations: May 24th

PERFECTION

"The thing that is really hard, and really amazing,
is giving up on being perfect and
beginning the work of becoming yourself."
Anna Quindlen

"Perfect"...to me that word sounds like: "Do it again. You didn't do it right." That's the message I get from the voices in my head. The messages of perfectionism tell me over and over that I did it wrong. It's a powerful weapon when you use it as a whip against yourself, just like negative messages when you look in a mirror. I have a choice every single moment of every single day to either pick up that whip and hurt myself, or to "get out of my own way" and be kind. I can choose to look in the mirror and be thankful, and to look at myself and feel love. It takes a lot of practice, but it is worth it.

If you love yourself more than you love anyone else, you can feel happiness again. You can create again. You can look at your shadow and say good things about it too! It's another beautiful you ~ unique and wonderfully made.

One day at a time...
I will celebrate the beauty of myself today and everyday.

~ Karen

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Perfection: What a Crock! (My blog)

The maxim, “Nothing but Perfection” may be spelled Paralysis.

Winston Churchill

If I have to do everything Perfectly, why bother even trying? I can’t be perfect, no matter how much I’d like to be or how hard I try. Even when I stayed on plan the entire time I was on the 5/1, I am quite sure I wasn’t ‘perfect.’  When I went out for dinner at least once a week, I didn’t take my food scale with me. So, being unable to weigh & measure my L&G meant that I was guesstimating my caloric intake. It was not ‘perfect’ nor precise. What it was was close enough.

If I strive for utter perfection in my life, I wind up paralyzing myself.

What I do strive for is doing the best I possibly can.

Nowadays in Maintenance, I am not perfect either. What I am, though, is Committed to my food plan & the lifestyle change I undertook back on June 11th of 2008.  On that day nearly 5 years ago, I decided I was going to change my life because I was sick & tired of being fat & medicated because of my own bad eating habits.

I decided to use the Medifast 5/1 to teach me how to develop a routine to follow instead of relying on myself. I saw where that got me: to 225 lbs & a size 2X.

By no means am I perfect but I am Committed. There is a big difference between those two words, isn’t there?

If I have a bad moment with my food intake, that’s what it is: a moment. I get right back to my routine & my food plan if I veer off track momentarily.

The routine is my new lifestyle: eating 6 small, healthy meals a day & working out for 25 minutes after dinner every night. And climbing 4 flights of stairs at work 4 times a day. Whether I feel like it or not. And many, many times I do not feel like it, let me tell you. What I do feel like is staying thin & healthy, more than I don’t feel like exercising or eating right.

But motivation & ‘feeling like it’ has nothing to do with Commitment. And Commitment has nothing to do with perfection.

Once I ditched my ideals of attaining perfection, only then was I able to accept the fact that weight management is an ongoing process. We here at MF call it a journey.  Whatever it is, I can tell you what it isn’t: a struggle for perfection.

If a person strives for Perfection, he’s probably weighed down with the All-Or-Nothing mentality, too. You know…..the “If I Eat One Cookie That Means I Have To Eat The Whole Box Of Cookies” way of thinking? Because hey, if I eat that cookie, I may as well eat the whole box because I’ve already ruined the whole day & now I have to wait until tomorrow to start the damn diet again. The “Day One Again” mentality, which I personally detest. Every day of my life is Day One.  Every day is a new Day One to do the best I can at whatever I attempt. Every day is a new Day One for all of us, unless we don’t wake up that day. And, if we don’t wake up, we will no longer care about earthly matters anyway.

One day at a time, we can do anything. One day at a time, we can ditch the struggle for Perfection & accept the terms of reality. Reality is, we’re prone to being fat; we tend to eat too much; we tend to rather sit on the couch & watch TV than work out; and we’d rather eat what we want when we want to and still be thin & healthy.

When we ditch the fantasy & the struggle for perfection & accept Reality is when we get our heads into the game.

And this is one game that lasts for Life. If you made a mistake this morning, make a healthy choice now. If you ate a cookie, leave it at one cookie & don’t turn it into a Box. If you want to lose weight & get healthy, Make. It. Happen.

I believe you can.

Do you?

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