Who is Your Weight Loss Boss?
Who is the boss of you? You are the boss of you!
But with great power comes great responsibility!
In Italian families, I'm told, family members -- particularly men -- can be hard on women if they start to put on weight. I'm not in favor of such criticism, but it may be true that the watchful eye of others has an effect on how much these women eat.
Now, if you're like many American women, you might live alone. Or, even if you don't, you might spend quite a bit of time alone. So, if you don't have an Italian mother, father, uncle or brother monitoring your trips to the kitchen, you need to take 100 percent responsibility for what goes into your mouth.
Otherwise you'll never be able to reach the stage where you can become a carefree eater.
There are three kinds of eaters -- careful, careless and carefree. Careful eaters are maybe a bit neurotic and not much fun. Careless eaters eventually gain weight and might even become sick because of their irregular habits. The best way to be is carefree, which means you can relax and do what you want, because behind the scenes you're in control of yourself.
In other words, you can trust yourself. Every eating opportunity isn't a problem or a potential threat. You like to eat, but eating doesn't dominate your thoughts. Congratulations! You're a healthy person!
Good bosses are firm but kind. They're like good parents or good pet owners. People who let their pets or kids run all over them sometimes think they are being kind and loving, but freedom to run amok doesn't benefit the kid or the pet. Both need -- and secretly crave -- a certain degree of discipline.
It's the same with your body.
We've talked about loving ourselves. Wouldn't you just love it if loving yourself meant giving yourself sweets and candy and cakes all day long? It's a nice dream, but the reality of making every day a food "holiday" would be a nightmare. Sweets provide an artificial way of comforting yourself, but like alcohol, they can give you a very bad "hangover," both literally and figuratively. Too many can make you feel sick and cause your belly to "hang over" your belt. So you've got to monitor your consumption.
You need to be firm but kind when it comes to exercising, too. If you treat yourself like a drill sergeant, you may find yourself going AWOL with your exercise routine. Instead, encourage yourself like a good coach would. And if for some reason (like we all do from time to time), you fall off your exercise routine, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, give yourself a bacio (kiss) for trying anyway, and get back on the bicycle.