I'm good at following rules until they start working
Progress should make the rules easier to trust. Instead, it makes me feel exempt from them.
There is a point, every time things start going well, when something changes in me.
I never notice the exact moment.
There is no decision to stop. I don't wake up one morning and think: that's enough, I’m going back. It happens much more quietly than that.
I just start allowing things.
A little more food. A few days without the routine. A holiday is coming anyway. Work has been difficult. I'm tired. I've been good for long enough.
None of these things sounds particularly dangerous on its own. Most of them are even true.
But somewhere underneath them is another thought.
Now I can. I've earned this.
That's the part I don't understand.
I can be disciplined when I need to change something. With weight, I can make rules and follow them. I can see the weight coming off. I feel better. Things start moving in the direction I wanted.
You would think that would make me trust the process more.
Instead, it makes me start negotiating with it.
And I don't mean having one bad meal or enjoying a holiday. That would be normal. What bothers me is that somewhere along the way I know I'm no longer taking a break.
I know I'm going backwards.
And I keep going.
That's difficult to explain because I'm not confused about what is happening. I know what works. I know what I'm doing differently. I know where it will lead.
I just don't seem to care enough to stop it.
Not yet.
I usually wait until I can feel the consequences again.
Until I don't feel good. Until the weight has come back enough that I can see it. Until I'm uncomfortable enough to become serious again.
Then suddenly the old rules make sense.
And I start over.
I've done versions of this with other things too. Learning. Work. Things I genuinely wanted to become better at.
I can be incredibly focused while I'm chasing something.
I'm less good at being the person who simply continues after the chase starts working.
For a long time I thought this was just a discipline problem.
Maybe it is.
But lately I'm not so sure.
Because there is another part of this that is harder for me to admit.
I care much more than I would like to about being seen.
Not by everyone. Mostly by the people closest to me.
When I'm doing well, part of me is waiting for something from them. Recognition, maybe. Support. Confirmation. I'm not even sure what the right word is.
And when it doesn't come, I can feel something change.
It's not anger exactly.
It's closer to sadness.
And somewhere between that feeling and the next bad decision, a strange logic appears:
Fine. Then why am I doing all of this?
Writing that makes me uncomfortable because it sounds childish. Nobody owes me applause for losing weight. Nobody else is responsible for whether I learn something, do my work or keep a promise I made to myself.
I know that.
Which is why I don't understand why knowing it doesn't seem to be enough.
Maybe I'm connecting two things that aren't connected.
Maybe I'm simply very good at finding a deeper explanation for something much less interesting: I like rewards, I get tired of restriction, and eventually I choose the easier thing.
That's possible.
But there is one part of this that I keep coming back to.
I don't usually abandon the rules when they're failing.
I abandon them when they're working.
When I've made enough progress to feel good about myself again.
That's when I've earned this appears.
And maybe that's the sentence I need to understand.
Because earned what?
A meal?
A break?
A few weeks without rules?
Or have I earned the right to stop proving something?
I don't know.
What I do know is that eventually I always end up in roughly the same place: looking at something I had already fixed, wondering why I needed to break it again before I was willing to continue.
And then I make the rules again.