Several years ago I used to use a push mop on my kitchen floor. I weekly mopped my kitchen thinking my floor looked pretty clean. Then one day I spilled something on the floor and got a wet towel to clean it up. I noticed something as wiping that area of the floor. That one spot looked cleaner than the rest of the floor! I started wiping other areas. Now I mopped every week so it should have been clean. I realized what had happened was the mop wasn’t getting all the dirt and was just pushing it around. But it was so gradual I didn’t notice how bad it was. So I decided to actually scrub the floor. I got on my hands and knees with a bucket of water and cleaner and started at it. It was mind blowing what a difference it made. I stood back and looked at the floor and was “floored” at how really clean it was. While I was scrubbing I was thinking how this actually resembled my life. I had not made an effort at that time to lose weight but I had things going on in my life that were hard to deal with. I thought I had dealt with them but all I did was push them around. Like the mop was just pushing the dirt around and not totally getting my floor clean, I was doing the same emotionally. I was unhappy about my weight but tried to fix it with calorie restriction and exercising like crazy.
As I’m writing this I just finished a week long clean out of clothes, dishes, papers and anything else it’s time to get rid of. I cleaned out clothes that don’t fit anymore, dishes that I don’t need and papers that needed to shredded a long time ago. I do this regularly, but today’s cleaning was a big deal. I am letting go of emotions I had tied to the things I’m getting rid of. I’m shedding invisible fat as I have lost the physical fat.
Two years ago, I started telling myself I’m in “The Maintenance Mindset.” I have been looking for a way to define this mindset for losing weight and here it is……(drumroll please)
The Maintenance Mindset for Weight Loss
Taking the steps necessary to lose the invisible weight while losing the physical weight.
This way you can keep the weight off for a lifetime and not just a short time.
The invisible weight are the negative comments and thoughts you have about yourself. The invisible weight includes the bad relationships you stay in because you think you are worthless. The invisible weight is believing any negative things people have said about you. When I look back on my weight loss journey, many times my plateaus with my weight loss were due to the emotional stuff I hadn’t dealt with. It’s amazing how the scale and inches started moving down when I dealt with the invisible weight issues.
Since my book came out, Losing Weight to Gain Control, the first questions I always get are what steps to take to get the physical weight off. But I always remind the person, most of the work to get the physical weight off and keep it off is in your head. Start there and you’ll have a better chance of getting to maintenance and staying there.
By the way, I bought a new mop that does get ALL the dirt off the floor!