Since I have started my weight loss challenge last year, I have talked to many people about their own challenges with extra pounds. People often ask me questions like, “What’s your secret?” The other thing that people tell me all the time is, “You must have a lot of willpower!”

Ok, stop right there. Do I have a lot of willpower?

Easy answer to that is NO. It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s true. I don’t think that I have any more willpower than the next person. So how does that make sense, given the fact that I’ve lost 40 pounds and several inches of body fat over the last 8 months?

My answer: MINDFULNESS.

Let me get one thing straight first: I have never been a super skinny girl. My family DNA consists of women who are “solid” but not fat. I have always struggled with my weight, although I doubt people really labelled me as “fat”.

As I grew older, and had my kids, I watched my weight drift very slowly upwards. It wasn’t anything drastic, but a pound a year over the course of “X” years, and, well, you get the picture. After my Mom died, I sank into a very deep depression and part of my “therapy” was eating. All the things that I used to eat in moderation were suddenly a bit more easily consumed, and I had this whole mindset of “Well, if she was healthy, and she died so young, then what’s the use in eating healthy?”

I usually avoided mirrors, as I never really liked my appearance. Also, I never weighed myself, so I really didn’t have a handle on how much weight I had gained. Then, one day, I went to the doctor’s office, and the new nurse on duty insisted on weighing me before I went inside to see the physician. The number absolutely FLOORED me. I couldn’t believe that I weighed that much. How I didn’t burst into tears at that very moment, I’ll never know.

From that point, I realized that there was a problem, and that it needed to be fixed. I started by hiring a personal trainer to help me get my flabby frame into some kind of shape. After months of training, I had not lost even a single pound. My trainer was stumped. “What exactly are you eating, Jennifer?” I muttered something about not eating that badly, and she said that I needed to get it on paper. EVERYTHING. A whole week of recording every morsel that went into my month. Talk about daunting.

As I started to record my food intake, it became pretty clear that I was ingesting way too much food, and way too much of the wrong types of foods. I joined Weight Watchers Online as I was in desperate need of guidance. The information I gleaned from WW was really helpful, and it helped me develop a framework for the kinds of foods I need to eat, and how much.

The whole key to my weight loss: PAYING ATTENTION. MINDFULNESS.

Imagine not knowing how much you weighed? For years I never knew my own weight, and I didn’t care to find out. Once you know that you are, say, 50 pounds overweight, it becomes a lot more difficult to justify eating a Peanut Buster Parfait at DQ. (secret ice cream obsession, sorry!)

Once I started paying closer attention to the quantity and quality of my diet, the pounds quickly started coming off. As I started seeing the numbers going down, it was not as attractive to eat greasy, calorie ridden foods to satisfy my every whim.

I have started to understand my own personal equilibrium: what goes in food-wise (and how much), and what is the consequence of those dietary decisions. Once I finish my weight loss challenge, (15 more pounds to go!) I will slightly adjust my intake to reflect the fact that I am no longer in weight loss mode, but weight maintenance mode.

One thing won’t change, and that’s the ongoing monitoring. The minute I stop paying attention to those food decisions, the weight will start to pile back on, and that’s not a road I wish to travel again.