Acceptance & The Return

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Well, I ate too much yesterday, but I'm up early enough to get to writing group without hurrying. I win some and lose some. I don't have a piece of writing to bring to group, but there are other things to do there besides focusing on me.

I ate all three meals yesterday out at restaurants — a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast, burger, fries and beer for lunch; taco, fries, and margarita at dinner. No wonder the scale read 220.0 pounds this morning when I was 216.8 yesterday. Have I really gained 3.2 solid pounds in a day? No, but it's a reminder to do things differently today.

Tomorrow I'll be back at 216-217 pounds. It won't require much effort beyond returning to habits I've built the last month and a half. I have three steps planned:

  1. Return to two light meals prepared at home,
  2. Continue fifty push-ups a day, working on twenty consecutive, and
  3. Hit the gym or go for a run.

Nothing complicated, radical, or new. It's just a return to what I've been doing and how I have been feeling.

How have I been feeling? Better until this morning when I woke tired, feeling there was still food in my belly. I woke up feeling full, knowing I had made mistakes yesterday.

Yet I'm not feeling guilt, anger, or even disappointment. That's pretty weird for me. Weirder still, I feel comfortable knowing I'm ready to return, that I'm already returning. I'm not about to redouble my efforts or get down to serious work on this. No, I'm just returning to what I've been doing. Yesterday happened and I know why. I accept it.

Previously, losing weight was about will power and giving things up. Guess how well that worked. This time, instead of will power I'm depending on accepting who I am while still believing in the need for change. It's a weird balance that I can't explain well but feel strongly and that's enough. I accept yesterday's eating and I'm open to the return to my habits.

Accepting the bad and good paves the way for the gift of a return. The return isn't about past mistakes or problems. It's welcoming myself with gratitude and happiness, maybe even love and returning to the journey.

That sense of return allows me to better accept that the journey is long and that in turn makes it easy to dismiss small problems. I was sick for nine days, but that doesn't end the journey. I ate poorly yesterday, but that hardly matters on the journey. No need to pile on the idea that I have to make up for mistakes and repair damage. I just return to what I had been doing.

What about the weight? Earlier I said that I'll be 216-217 pounds tomorrow. That sounds like I'll have to punish myself for yesterday's mistake with a day of fasting or a killer workout, but I'm sure the return will take me where I want to go, that I'll be back in the groove and things will just work out. No punishment necessary.

I feel lighter than when I woke, lighter than when I started writing this. I'm feeling the return and acceptance, the trust that the path to which I'm returning is a good one. If nothing else, I'm lighter for shedding the dead weight of guilt and recrimination. Acceptance turns out to be so much lighter.