by Maria's Last Diet
Dear Maria...
You know that idea, if you make one little change in your life, it will have a ripple effect. I was reading about this, and I thought it sounded like a good principle, so I tried it.
I'm notoriously bad at keeping my dieting promises to myself. I say I'll really do it this time, then I don't. I guess it's just that I can't change so many things at once. You know, I'll go on a weight-loss diet and I have to eat only so much, and only certain things, and it's always so tremendously different from how I usually eat.
So this idea of one tiny change was very appealing to me - so doable. I had no idea what to pick. Everything I thought of seemed too small and insignificant. But I stuck with it and I decided I wouldn't eat any snack food while I was watching TV at night. This sounds silly, doesn't it? Like, so what? I picked it because I have a tendency to grab a bowl of something or a bag of something and plop down in front of the TV, even though I just had dinner.
Well, at first it seemed strange. I asked myself what good it would do, since I wasn't changing anything else about my eating. I wasn't on a weight-loss diet or anything, just no snack food at TV time.
It was a small thing, because I didn't have to limit myself in any other way. But you wouldn't believe the way it affected me.
The thing is, it hit me that I could do this. I never thought I could watch TV without munching on snack food. It never occurred to me that I could. But I could. And I can. And I don't eat in front of the TV anymore.
It's rippling through my life, for sure. The other day my son asked me to throw away the rest of his ice cream cone because he didn't want any more. Now that was another thing I never knew I could do - I always thought I couldn't help but finish it.
For a tiny change, this is having one big impact - I'm starting to really lose the weight.