Life's a Stage

Fellow travellers, everything in life has stages;

Stages of life

Stages of Change

Stages of Grief

SO, it occurred to me that since beginning my travels my dieting has gone through stages also.
Before we even begin our travels along the dieting highway we go through the same 5 stages of grieving that happens when we experience the passing of a loved one ( let's face it fellow travellers: We have loved our Junk Food!)
The stages go something like this:

Denial (“The angle of the camera was all wrong, I'm not that big. The camera adds five kilos. Or fifty.”);
Anger (“Why did I let myself get like that?!”);
Bargaining (“I’ll do something about it. Next week …”);
Depression (“Why bother?”); and, finally,
Acceptance (“Time to get off your fat arse and do something about your life").

At this stage we have decided
I AM GOING TO DO IT! THE EXTRA KILOS ARE GOING!
This is when our dieting stages really begin:

The Commitment Phase;

You've committed to your diet and a state of euphoria has set in. You are doing everything right and watching each step to ensure you don't fail. You see successes and love your new routines. You are happy, blissful even. You believe that this is going to work. You love your new lifestyle, it loves you back.


The Honeymoon Phase

you have been religious in your choices and the results are starting to happen, clothes are looser and scales are lighter. You are feeling at one with your new food partnership, you believe that this is your partner for life. You are complete! But then you realise this takes work, lots of hard work and you start to miss your old life, the grass begins to look greener on the other side of the dieting wall. You start to question if it's all worth it. You question your results, you can't see the differences in yourself and want to run and hide, back to your old carefree existence; this leads into the next phase:


The Trial Separation (Diet Fatigue)

The weight loss starts to plateau, the feelings aren't the same as they were back at the partnership stage; you wonder if you have made the right decision. You miss your food, you miss the comfort, you miss being able to laze in bed and eat to your heart's content. The diet is not living up to its end of the bargain. You start to feel you'll be better off on your own again. Things are starting to get hard, you are having to work harder for the same results. This is the stage that you begin to question yourself and your commitment and ability to achieve. You have a bad day, make the wrong food choices and BANG!!! it's all over. You eat what you want to and reevaluate your decisions to begin this crazy diet. What were you thinking, it's not you. You were meant to be this size, bad genes, heavy bone structure.... and the list goes on. This is the point that we need to do some soul searching and start to get real about ourselves... Look at how and why we got here. Take off the rose coloured glasses and stand naked in front of the mirror of truth. Only once we have done that can we really move on to the next stage.

The Renewing Vows Stage. (Getting back in the Saddle)

This is the stage that we make our goals more realistic. We accept that we won't have the same results as other travellers. This is when we realise that we can only travel in our own trainers (joggers or runners to you Aussies) that our life story, although similar to others is distinct and, although we have the support, encouragement and company of others, the path we travel is unique. At this point we need to stop fixating on numbers and start to incorporate everything we have learned from our trial separation.


The Maintenance Stage.
We may have reached our goals or we may still be working towards that final number, but we realise what we need to do in order to get there. Things are still not easy but you have passed through the previous stages at least once and know what to do when you fall back again. We have accepted that this is a road with many peaks and troughs. That one mistake does not undo the foundations that we have laid.

Does this mean that once the Maintenance Stage is reached we are home free? Absolutely NOT!
This road we have chosen fellow travellers, is one which will sometimes see us walking down the same street, turning back on ourselves or going around in circles. As we reach each stage we work through it, learn and move on.