By Lena Mattice

A few years ago, I set a goal to do a side plank on the beaches of Hawaii once I reached my goal weight of 140 pounds. I was so excited about that goal, and I was even more excited about going to Hawaii. Well, here I am in this picture — doing a side plank on the north beaches of Hawaii with my grandson.

I wasn’t 140 pounds, but I was living the dream: doing a side plank in Hawaii with all my kids and my grandson. We had such a great time. But there was one thing that kept me stuck when it came to losing weight — my thoughts about not doing something until I hit a goal. In the past, I would always set a goal to get a new outfit or do something fun if I lost a certain amount of weight. Those goals were rarely met... and honestly, I still got the reward anyway. So what was the point of setting the goal?
Do I need a reward to set a goal?
What if the goal itself — the growth, the progress — was the reward?
What was keeping me stuck, and how could I change it?
These are just some of the thoughts I’ve been working through around reaching my goal weight.

When you live in a bigger body, you have a lot of self-conscious thoughts.
Have you ever walked into a room and thought, "Oh man, where am I going to sit? I need to find the closest chair to the door, and one that has plenty of room around it."
Have you ever thought, "What am I doing at the gym when I look the way I do?"
Have you ever thought, "I hope people don’t see all the junk food in my cart and think, 'No wonder she looks the way she does.'”
Have you ever just wanted to eat whatever you wanted without worrying about how terrible you’d feel afterward — knowing you would regret it, but feeling powerless to stop?

This has been my life, daily.
My whole life, food has been an issue for me — and not because I don’t love healthy foods! I love fruits and vegetables. I love salads, main dishes, cakes, ice cream, and cookies. I simply love the taste of food. But one thing I don’t love is how certain foods make me feel for days afterward.
So WHY? Why do I keep eating foods that hurt me, even as I’m putting them into my mouth, knowing how I’ll feel a few hours later?

Growing up, I never felt like I had the prettiest body in the world.
My mom had weight struggles, and most of my siblings did too. Some of them chose surgery — the lap band or gastric bypass. For some, it worked. For others, they gained the weight back.
I didn’t want to go that route.
I wanted to fix how I think about food.
I wanted to help my brain get me to the weight I wanted to be.
I wanted to be the CEO of my own health.

Google says a CEO is the Chief Executive Officer: the person responsible for implementing plans, making decisions, improving the company.
That’s what I wanted for myself — to be the person who manages and improves my health.

I want to use my prefrontal cortex to decide what I eat — not just eat for a quick dopamine hit.
I want to be the one in charge of what goes into my body.
I want to honor and respect myself with self-discipline.
Self-discipline means changing my heart and mind about how I think about food.

To do this, I wake up every morning at 4 a.m. and plan my day — my food, my exercise, my goals.
I make a plan because it’s easier to stick to a plan than to just eat whatever I want in the moment.
When a CEO runs a company, they don’t show up at 9 a.m. and say, "Maybe I’ll have a meeting today. Maybe we’ll find some clients."
No.
They have a plan.
And now, so do I.
I write down my goal and my plan, and I refer back to it throughout the day to stay focused. It’s easier to say no to foods that don’t nourish me when I know they’re not part of my plan.

Does this mean I never eat something off plan? No.
Does it mean I stick to my plan perfectly every day? Definitely not.
It means I make a plan, and I do my best to follow it.
I do know that on the days I stick to my plan, I feel so much better about myself — and I start to trust myself more to create the right plan for me.

In Christy Lee’s class, Live Life Lean, she talks about writing about “How I choose to nourish my body… How I choose to strengthen my body.”
These are all choices we make every day.
No one else can make you eat something.
You choose to put it into your mouth.

A few weeks ago during Teacher Appreciation Week, people brought food to school every day.
Every day, I had to choose what I would eat and what I wouldn’t.
There were moments when I wanted to throw in the towel and just eat whatever looked good.
But I had a plan.
Some days I stuck to it. Some days I didn’t.
But in the end, I knew: I was the one choosing.
Thoughts like, “It was so nice of them to bring us food — I have to eat something," didn’t serve me at all.
There’s no excuse for eating things that harm my body.
It’s just a thought — and I still have the choice.

I am the CEO of my own body.
It’s been a long process, but little by little, I’m learning to manage my thoughts, my eating, and my health — and to think before I eat.

_________________

•   To discover how to start choosing more effectively now, read The Jackrabbit Factor (FREE!)  
•   If you want more step-by-step guidance on creating the life you really want, join me in the Mindset Mastery program.
•   If you want my help overcoming that giant obstacle right in front of you, learn more and sign up for Genius Bootcamp.