Derserving.

I am losing weight.
But I don't deserve it.

I really am seeing the scale go down nearly every day. But I am not exercising with my Leslie Sansone videos every day and I'm not following my plan exactly right every day either.

Today, for example, I had a small bowl of potato chips. Yesterday, it was a half cup of chocolate chips and peanuts. The day before that --well, that was Monday. It may have been a "perfectly on-plan" day.

But there's that word. That horrible word. That word which derails more attempts at change than any other, I'd bet. That word which has destroyed more than it has ever created. What word?

"Perfect."

Yeah, that one.

I think that rooted in my feelings of undeservedness is this feeling that I cannot possibly derserve what I want and am working towards unless my efforts are perfect.

So, while I may not be doing my Leslie Sansone videos evetry day, I am getting out in the evening and walking with my husband and the dog. I walked from one end of the mall to the other today without feeling like I had to collapse. My feet didn't ache, even though I wasn't wearing the "right" shoes.) I couldn't do that two months ago.

And the food? Well, it isn't perfect and I do need to reign it in: but it is perfectly acceptable, for example, to compensate for the unplanned "treat" (like the peanuts and chocolate chips) by not eating the one I had planned. It still counts as taking the right steps in the direction I want to be traveling.

When I look at it like that, "derserve" actually seems like an odd notion. Weight loss is not something I "deserve" as a result of my efforts: it IS the result of my efforts. One day, maybe, a plateau will be the result of my efforts--or a gain. I won't "deserve" those either--they will simply be the results of my actions--no more, no less.

I am responsible for my actions and thus I am responsible for their consequences, to a point. Teasing out that point is a brier patch of problems. The whole rhetoric of "personal freedom" and its accompanying language of "dessert" and "worthiness" around obesity and weight loss is a decidedly thorny issue.

But tonight, I can say this much. I am not doing this weight loss thing perfectly. Not by a long shot. But I seem to be doing it well enough.

And that's good enough.