I have dieted many, many times in many, many different ways. All of those times, I suffered. I drank shakes, counted points, ate prepackaged meals, met with nutritionists, forced myself to follow various regimens, and above all, I suffered. Yes, I lost weight on those diets, but I also felt deprived and hungry. I ached for the forbidden foods. I could not wait to be done with the diet so I could go back to my old ways.

This time, though, I am not dieting. I have made drastic changes to the foods I eat: no refined sugar in 2019; no wheat or dairy for the foreseeable future. But I have made those changes not because an expert told me to but because that is what I want.

I have lost over forty pounds, and I did not suffer over a single one of those pounds. I lost every one of those pounds because I was doing the things I wanted to do.

(I feel like I need to blog about my weight loss adventures to sort out the ideas in my head. I know it’s important to understand what I’m doing to make these changes on a permanent mind-soul-body level. But I have so much to say, that it’s infuriating to try to distill it in a single blog post. Still, my intuition says I need to slowly spin out my thoughts over blog posts and maybe eventually, I’ll know what I need to say in a book. In the meantime, I wish I could transfer everything I have learned into your mind, but I guess that’s the point. We are supposed to go on our own personal journeys and figure things out in our own way. I can share what I have learned, but I can’t get in your head and reset all your neural pathways. You have to do that for yourself.)

(Sorry. I’m rambling.)

(I love rambling!)

As I was saying: I have not suffered over the past forty pounds and I do not anticipate any suffering over the next sixty.

Why? Pain and pleasure.

I was starting to figure this out on my own last year when I eliminated refined sugar from my diet for one hour and managed to extend that hour again and again until I was sugar-free for nearly three months. I experienced the best menstrual cycles of my life. I realized that sugar was causing me the pain of awful PMS; and that living without sugar was giving me the pleasure of easy menstrual cycles. When I let myself eat sugar over the Christmas holidays, I experienced vile, miserable PMS and this cemented my new neural pathway: refined sugar = Painful PMS; no refined sugar = Pleasant Menstrual Cycles.

That’s why I decided to abstain from refined sugar for 2019. I wanted to give myself the gift of a year without PMS. I want to see just how healthy I can feel if I let my body truly reboot and rebuild without refined sugar.

Then I started reading Tony Robbins’ Awaken the Giant Within. Robbins writes a lot about pain and pleasure. Humans are motivated to do things that increase pleasure and avoid things that cause pain. We are that simple. If we associate food with pleasure, then we are going to eat food, even if we eat too much and gain weight. But if we associate pain with overeating and pleasure with eating moderate amounts of healthy foods, then we can lose weight.

I’m not even halfway through Awaken the Giant Within. It’s a hefty tome (over 500 pages!). But the points that Robbins makes about pain vs. pleasure have really resonated with me and my recent experiences with refined sugar.

I think this is why I have enjoyed losing the past forty pounds. I have learned to associate weight loss with the immense pleasure of good health. Something has changed within me. I used to look at a cookie or carton of ice cream and anticipate enormous pleasure. Now, I see those same desserts and just think about pain and terrible PMS. I don’t want to experience insomnia or violent mood swings at the end of my menstrual cycle, so I now recoil when I encounter sweets.

The same thing is happening with exercise. I am walking and stretching every day. I am spending more time exercising than I ever have in my entire life. Why? Because I have associated exercise and stretching with so many pleasurable things: weight loss; better moods; and more vibrant energy. In the past, I thought that any time I spent exercising was time stolen from writing. This caused me pain. Now, I see how my creativity is enhanced by exercise. I have also associated exercise with the absence of pain. I used to think that exercise caused pain, but now I see that the more I walk and stretch, the better my muscles feel.

I am exercising more and eating better than I ever have in my entire life, and it feels easy because I associate these new habits with enormous pleasure. I am loving my life. I am not suffering.