What does that spell?

This weekend I went to a church women’s group brunch. We watched a conference DVD. One of the speakers used the word diet in her presentation. She talked about rearranging the letters in the word diet and realized it also was the word edit. I got to thinking about the word edit in relation to the word diet. When we think of a diet we often have negative connotations. Well I decided to look at the word edit.

We can edit what we eat. In order to eat healthy we often have to edit certain foods and/or ingredients out of our food choices. By looking at editing them it is less threatening than diet. I have leaned to edit certain food groups (sugar, soda, fruit juices, pasta, rice, bread, potatoes, etc). Sometimes editing is just a matter of limiting the amount, limiting the frequency and sometimes even editing it all together. But whichever it might be, it feels more acceptable to edit it than to “diet it”.

Now, let’s look at other areas of editing.

Attitude: I edit my attitude every day. I have to edit my attitude at the first opening of my eyes in the morning. Do I have a positive attitude or a negative attitude? Do I want to get up or do I want to slam the alarm clock and roll over and bury my head under the pillow? Usually the latter choice brings on a negative attitude, so I have to edit that choice and crawl out of bed and shuffle to the bathroom and into the routine of the day. If I edit it correctly the first time around it will take less red ink to edit the rest of the day.

Perspective: My perspective of the day, my actions, the people around me, the job at hand, etc. will affect the amount of editing I have to do. If I have a perspective that “this is the day the Lord has made and I will be glad in it”, then the editing is fairly easy. If I have a keen perspective of my actions I will do my best in anything I attempt. If I am doing my best then there is usually no need to edit anything. Doing my best is all I can do. This perspective influences my actions. I pray my actions reflect God’s presence in my life. My perspective of the people around me is a tough one. It is so easy to be influenced by their attitude, perspective and actions; just as mine influences them. I edit mine so hopefully theirs can be the best. I know I can not control anyone but myself, but I can influence others. I also hope the job I do (profession as well as personal) is top notch. I pray my actions please God.

Expectations: Wow, this is a tough one. I am editing my expectations constantly. I’ve often in the past found myself expecting more from people than they can give. This is an editing process I hate. Being a perfectionist, I tend to have high standards for myself. I have to constantly remind myself that no one is perfect and what I expect from myself isn’t always best to expect from others. I have to edit my expectations about life, events, wants, needs, etc. My expectation of goals is another big editing project. As I reach certain goals I have to develop other goals in order to continue to grow. Sometimes my expectations of certain goals have to be edited in order to be able to actually accomplish them. As an example; the expectation to loose 10 pounds in a month will definitely have to be edited in order to be realistic.

Acceptance: How many times have you had to edit what you were willing to accept? Sometimes this means lowering standards. Standards have to be realistic, just like goals. At the same time they need to be so they cause you to stretch. Accepting others isn’t always easy. Sometimes I have to edit my thoughts about and my actions towards others in order to accept them. If it happens to be someone that does something I don’t agree with, don’t like or isn’t up to my standards it is really hard to edit my acceptance of them, but God directs us to accept them anyway. Sometimes acceptance is hard when it involves myself. I have to accept I will stumble, fall and fall short of my expectations. Sometimes I have to edit what I accept and what I won’t accept. I can learn from the positive and negatives of life and my choices. Regardless, I have to accept the final outcome and move on.

Habits: I am finding editing my habits is one of the toughest jobs. I thought I had some old habits whipped and now I find some of them sneaking back into my life and my routines. As I get farther out from surgery and become more comfortable with my body and my life, I find some habits I focused on in the beginning and thought I had eliminated are becoming habits again. Just how do you snuff out old habits you don’t want any more? It’s not like you can take them to the junk yard, bury them in the back yard or disguise them. You have to face them, evaluate them, edit them and eliminate them. It is a challenge I hate, but must accept and work on daily. I have to find a plan that will work and then work at the plan. One of my habits that have slipped back into my life is what the community of weight loss surgery calls grazing. I like to call them planned snacks, but if I am honest with myself, it is plain and simple - grazing! I have allowed certain food habits to take over my good common sense. I have discovered my body will accept snack size dark chocolate, Twix, Tootsie Rolls, just to name a few. It is time I nip this in the bud. I write about it in order to make myself face what I have to do. I also write about it to encourage other WLS patients to face that habit that feels so comfortable and is so comforting. You don’t have to be a WLS patient to acknowledge this feeling. All of us have habits, foods, actions, temperaments, etc that need to be placed back in the past. We need to accept the process of editing them and crossing them off our active list.

Habitat: This one falls in with the last category. If my habitat is not filled with the things I shouldn’t indulge in then I will not create that bad habit. I must take inventory of what my habitat houses. This doesn’t just include food, but every aspect of my life. My habitat is my surroundings, my environment, my thoughts and my actions. If I surround myself with the positives and act on my needs and not my wants I am more likely to be successful. I can edit the concept of what is need and what is want. I often think I need that food, that candy, that taste, that comfort; when in actuality it is a want. If I were to edit my thought process and edit my evaluation of the situation, I will 99% of the time not do what I want to do, but do what I need to do. The first step to success is to assess my habitat and edit what needs to be changed to be successful.

So I have discovered not all editing is bad. Many times editing is good. It allows me to grow, change, accept and reject certain things. Now dieting, that’s a frustration we all have endured at one point or another in our life. Some of us more so than others. It became a way of life for me before surgery. Now I just need to edit. I find it is easier to be a well rounded person (no pun intended) if I am editing. From the beginning I said I have to have the perspective that “I don’t need that” versus the perspective “I can’t have that”. It’s time I get back to that thought. It all comes down to the spelling: diet/edit. It comes down to want/need, healthy/heavy.

A very special friend of mine told me, "today is a new day and there is no room for yesterday in it." I think I will make that my focus this week. I will stop beating myself up for the choices I’ve made that don’t measure up. I will form healthy habits a step at a time. I will edit my thoughts and actions to conform to my needs and goals. I will work on it today and not focus on the mistakes of yesterday. I can do it! So can you!


"Believe in your dreams and they may come true;
believe in yourself and they will come true"
~Anonymous~