Wednesday, November 7, 2012

A Most Insightful Frustration

I think that most of us have a magic number in mind when it comes to our ideal weight.  What tells us that is the weight we should be?  Maybe a weight that we used to be (in highschool, before we got married, before we had kids) or like for me, a chart or equation.

My ideal weight number came from an equation that we used every day to calculate ideal weight in the hospital.  I am a female at 5'9 and my ideal weight is calculated with 100 pounds for the first 5 feet and 5 pounds per inch after that.  So my magic 'number' is 145.

Well over the course of the Fit in 6 program and now participation, along side my pilot group, in my own Eat 2 Liv program, I have seen that number come and go.  I have overshot my goal.  And now I am actually feeling some anxiety over my preconceived notion that 145 was my number.  "I am not supposed to continue to lose weight beyond that!"

Please don't think I am trying to minimize anyone's frustration in even getting down to their 'number'.  I recognize that many may wish they had my problem.  But my reality is, like anyone else's, a need to let go of the 'number' and engage in a healthy lifestyle letting my body settle where it may. 

For me it has been a most insightful frustration.  I didn't think that I was the person who needed to move past the number.  I honestly thought I was the informed, educated dietitian who understood alternate measures of success and as ridiculous as it sounds- I knew, without a doubt, what my number should be 

But it turns out I have the same lesson to learn as everyone else- Let go of the number, and just LIVE!