Day 117: Mind over Matter

So my friend was talking about her diet on her blog yesterday and talked a lot about how difficult it is to keep dieting when you aren't seeing any progress.  I completely sympathize with her.  It has now been a month, and I have gone up and down on the scale every week.  I have not really lost anything since the end of December. 

As I thought about my friends plight (and my own) this morning on the way to work, I thought about when I ran a marathon.  It was not easy, but it was an experience filled with mental, physical, and spiritual lessons.  Through my training, I quickly learned that long-distance running is a physical game, but not as much as it is a mental game.  Those that properly train mentally for a marathon usually complete their race.  Those that do all of the physical preparation, but do not mentally prepare, often find themselves unable to finish because their mind does not allow them to.  It is really a weird phenomenon. 

The interesting thing about this is that, although I am discouraged about the lack of physical change, I really am not contemplating changing back to the old way.  Of course I have mental ups and downs to, but ultimately, I really think I am winning the mental battle.  (Yesterday was a really bad day around our house.  I think everyone (except maybe Emily) was in a bad mood.  At one point, after complaining about the food Emily had made, I said that I was just waiting for her to give up on me so I could go back to the old way of doing things (donuts . . . Coke . . . donuts dipped in Coke).  I know, I am a complete JERK.)

In the end, anyone who doesn't think food is mentally addicting is fooling themselves, and the withdrawal of food from life can (and often does) make you depressed and ornery.  I think that is just the way it is.  The fact is, these emotions are mental things that are manifested in physical ways.  We think our body needs Coke, needs butter, needs salt, and needs pure, raw cane sugar.  In reality, while our body does crave these things, getting the body to stop craving them is really not that difficult.  A few days or weeks of detox is usually enough.  The much harder, sometimes almost impossible, task is mental detox.  That is, convincing our mental selves that something we have so long enjoyed is not something that we really need.  I am a guy who can think of nothing better than an ice, cold Coca-Cola.  Despite being off the stuff for 117 days (but hey, who's counting?), I still drive by a McDonald's every once in a while and want to stop by for a drink (thankfully, I am boycotting McDonald's, so I can't (See Day 90)). 
That craving is NOT a physical thing, it is a mental thing.  So, I guess I say all of this to remind myself (and all you dieters out there), that lifestyle changes are as much a mental game as a physical one.  Sometimes the game is logical (225 calories for a jelly donut or 35 calories for a clementine), sometimes it is not (the treadmill tells me I have burned 500 calories, the scale says I have gained two pounds).  Either way, it is mind over matter.  Once your master your mind, the matter will follow . . . eventually!