Buy Walking VideosYour Superpower and Your Kryptonite
This article from Steve Pavlina has been sitting in my “write an entry about this” bin for awhile. He talks about your greatest strengths and your greatest weaknesses.
What is your greatest strength in weight management? My greatest strength is my drive and ambition. I am incredibly motivated to get thin. I always have been. I have been desperately motivated to get thin since I was nine years old. That motivation can hold me through things that most people cringe to think about.
My motivation to be thin held me through those summers in Billings when my grandparents starved me. I was able to survive those summers and emerge from them with baton, tennis and swimming skils. I can starve myself for three months on end. That is my strength.
It’s also my weakness and it’s why I was fat for years. I knew that I was capable of starvation for months on end. I would starve myself and then bounce back with bingeing. Eventually, I was able to stop starving myself, but that didn’t stop the bingeing. I continued bingeing whenever I felt insecure or unprotected.
I wasn’t able to conquer my Kryptonite until I was willing to give up my Superpower. The year that I said, “Enough!” and stopped dieting forever was the year the I started to head on the road to health. I refused to diet. I decided to be fat forever. I gave up my incredible motivation and willpower. I gave up my ability to live on starvation rations for months. I gave it all up and decided that I was good enough. I was pretty just the way I was and I wasn’t ever going to worry about losing weight again.
Ironically, when I gave all that up, I started eating healthier. I started following the USDA Food Pyramid, adding more veggies and fruits into my diet. I started replacing Diet Coke with water. I found Weight Watchers and decided that I needed to learn how to eat healthy instead of activating my Superpower.
And now, I am truly invincible.
What is your weight management Superpower? Is it also your Kryptonite? What are your strengths and how can you use them to your advantage? What are your weaknesses? How can you avoid them? Take an hour for yourself today and write out these questions and your answers.
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September 12th, 2005 at 1:33 pm
Wow, this is one of my favorite articles of yours. Self-acceptance is definately my key- I too have super will power. There is a beautiful poem I keep meaning to frame, it’s good for people who have a bit too much self-discipline. Here’s two lines that come to mind:” You do not have to crawl through the desert on your belly begging for forgiveness…. just let the soft flesh of your body love what it loves.” Oohh that’s a little scary for types like me! (Those two lines could be very paraphrased.)