Trigger Warning: Weight Loss, Body Image, Dieting
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Dear Jacky,
I’m sure you’ve heard people say the phrase “We live in a time of instant gratification.” I often associate that with people expecting online orders to show up at the door instantly or immediate assistance in a store. I’m sure you’ve seen the internet sensation where people leave candy or another sweet treat with small children and videotape them. They give the child the candy and tell them if they wait until mom or dad comes back they can have two instead of one. Mom and dad are gone for an extremely short amount of time, maybe a minute or two. It’s hilarious watching children struggle and sniff and maybe lick the candy trying to prevent themselves from immediately indulging themselves in that candy. This is a funny and comical example of the struggle for instant gratification. We associate it with children and as something we’ve outgrown and are “past” in life.
However, I find myself living in the struggle of instant gratification when it comes to myself. I’m generally very patient and understanding with others…maybe too patient. If we had hidden cameras in my house, I would be embarrassed because many times I look just like a small child. Ever eat healthy for 3 days and step on that scale over and over and wonder why you haven’t lost 5 pounds yet? No, just me? Okay (insert laughing emoji). Sometimes I have the hardest time being patient with myself and life in general. I was having a conversation the other day with someone. I was expressing how disappointed I’ve been in losing weight. I’ve gone to boxing and lifted weights 3-4 times a week for 3 months. I’ve cut back on my true love, Dr. Pepper. I’ve eaten egg whites for breakfast and sugar free Greek yogurt. I drink water all day. I meal prep. I grocery shop. I eat shredded chicken and tuna and salmon. My snacks are hard boiled eggs instead of chocolate chip cookies. It feels like with such drastic change pounds should be flying off and they aren’t. They said, “Well it took you time to gain the weight. It’s going to take time to lose it.” Don’t read this as an offensive comment because it wasn’t. I was like wow words I needed to hear. Why do I expect results and success so fast? Probably because I’m comparing my success to the results of others.
So I reframed it, I reframed boxing and eating healthy into something I do because it makes me feel physically healthier so I can be more engaged in my day. I reframe it as an act of discipline. If I keep doing this for long enough sooner or later the weight has to come off. It is an act of wills. I keep showing up. I keep eating healthy. I keep choosing shredded chicken over burritos and queso (okay most days). I keep choosing to eat at home instead of out. I’ve been trying to lose weight for the last two years since I put on 15lbs in grad school. Today when I stepped on the scale I have lost 15.1lbs over the last two years. It’s the chipping away at the boulder that eventually breaks it. If we average that out, 15.1lbs over 24 months is .629 lbs a month. If we break it down into each week it’s .145 lbs a week or .02lbs a day. That’s such small progress you won’t even see it on the scale week after week much less day after day. It would take 50 days to see a pound of progress, almost 2 months. I think that’s how progress looks for a lot of people, negligible but when we look at it in a cumulative nature it is significant even if we can’t see it.
That’s where the change takes place. That’s where the holy moments exist. That’s where we learn to lend grace to the most important of people, ourselves.
MOLLY INCLáN
This year has been wild in all the best and worst ways. I spent so much of this year in transition, in the wondering what’s next, in the hoping I’m making the right decisions. While I landed in this geographic location 4 months ago, I was still in transition until I accepted an offer in early November. I didn’t know if I would stay here so I couldn’t settle in. As much as I like to think that moving back here shouldn’t be hard, it is just as much of a transition as it has been when I’ve moved hours away in the past. Just because I’m from here, I know here, doesn’t make it any easier. I’ve changed a lot so I don’t fit right back in the same space I left. I transitioned back to an office job after 5 years out of one. I transitioned to a new field. I transitioned back to a town from a big city. This is the short list. Somehow I expect myself to adjust in the snap of a finger. I’ve been at my job for 6 weeks. When I was talking to my sister weeks ago, I said I feel like I should be making friends and meeting people and dating and paying off all my student loans and moving so I don’t have to commute and all the things like now but I also am still trying to lose weight and eat healthy and start a new job and I just don’t have time for it all. She said very bluntly (my family’s love language) maybe you should just focus on transitioning into your job before we get carried away with everything else. She told me to slow down. I have some very traditionally brilliant brothers and I think people discount my sister, she’s wise beyond her years and I’m lucky to have someone like her to speak into my life. I find myself wanting to charge forward, wanting to chase progress, holding the highest of expectations for myself. Expecting more than is humanly possible. I want to fix all the things including myself.
Jacky, we just can’t live our lives in a mindset of instant gratification. We will miss it all. In the pursuit of progress we need to lean more into consistency and showing up and not always getting it right the first time. We need to love the .02 lbs progress just as much as the 15.1 lbs progress. We need to love the journey as much as the destination. We need to have as much patience with ourselves as we have with others. We need to find the balance between goal setting and chasing dreams and just being, just soaking it in, just knowing that every day holds purpose but won’t be glamorous. I’ve found this time leaning into these things as acts of worship just as holy as the most prayerful talks with God. Leaning into who I’m meant to be, in the things delivered into my day every day, in the mundane. That’s where the change takes place. That’s where the holy moments exist. That’s where we learn to lend grace to the most important of people, ourselves.
Coating you in grace,
Molly