Upbringing with Scarcity Mindset : Succeeding with Weight loss

Bettering Ourselves : Physically

Black Thanksgiving, overeating, diet, family eats

The holidays have wrapped up. My goals have been set. This year I decided to do a 10 year plan to help me with balancing work, rest, and achieving them more long term. This year I set my weight loss goal at 50 lbs for the year. Only about one pound a week, including the knowledge that my journey to where I wasn't to be will take longer than most. Knowing I have differing goals, wanting to tone my skin as I lose. I want it off for good. I’ve taken years to work on diet, habits, and medical appointments. There are no other excuses left except to do it or not.

This morning I was thinking of how I was conditioned around eating in a black household. Things started to click for me as to why we struggle so much with weight loss. My grandma was the community baker. I helped her make cakes since I was in elementary school. My job transformed from ingredient gather to dishwasher, then to froster. This wasn’t a cake a week. Sometimes it was more than 5 a day. Me licking the beaters and spoons in between. The best part of the cake if you didn’t know.

Then, I would be able to get a piece when my brother was still outside. We would sneak at night to lift the glass cake plate to stick our finger in the icing or scrape some crumbs off the bottom. Hershey kisses in the bowls at Christmas I would sneak and hide the paper in the couch until there was enough in the trashcan to hide it. At, supper, we would not be able to leave the table until the plate was cleared.

In High school, food was scarce. Not many options let’s put it that way. I didn’t like turkey sandwiches again until I was pregnant with my daughter at 23. I still hate popcorn. When a jalapeño grilled cheese sandwich makes your day it’s pretty wild.

Then in college food was plenty then on the weekends were scarce. Managing food in college is hard when you don’t have a set sleep schedule. Even as an adult it is hard for me not to clear my plate or not bring leftovers home. I know when food is wasted it grinds my gears. Nothing highlights that more than having kids. I was blessed enough to live off of $50 in groceries a month before pregnancy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlaGAWkO1xo

Now, I live of $75 a week and my lawyer is amazed. It’s not easy but we all know cheap food isn’t usually good food. It takes a long time to shift the mindset of not clearing your plate after going through scarcity. Even when you get close to overcoming you return back home and enter back into those routines with your family. Someone knew you liked something. They made it for you. Now you feel obligated to eat it because, they went out of there way to make it. Then, knowing they already aren’t well off financially. I want to succeed at my weight loss. The brain work is the hard work. How do you tackle scarcity when it comes to food? When you return home with family?