One of my favorite “Coming Of Age” movies is the Cameron Crowe 2000 film, Almost Famous. The story is a personal account of Crowe’s experience as a 15 year old high school journalist getting an amazing opportunity to follow an up and coming rock band on their tour and writing an article about the group for Rolling Stone magazine. (Yes, this was back in the days when people actually read print magazines and not internet articles!) The movie starred Kate Hudson as a sort of band “groupie”, Billy Crudup and Jason Leigh as band members. The article that was finally published in the magazine focused on how difficult it was for the band members to handle their rapid success.
Whether referring to young athletes, movies stars, politicians or other people that achieve success in different forms, sometimes the “handling” of success becomes detrimental to the affected people. Very often we read/hear stories about very rich athletes and movie stars that wind up in legal problems from various “bad behaviors”. Frequently these people find themselves accompanied by people/an entourage that encourages/enables the behavioral patterns that cause trouble.
Okay, you knew where this would wind up so here goes: Handling “Success” in the weight control arena. When people begin a weight control journey, usually the initial phases are met with lots of passion, enthusiasm and maximum effort. However, when the weight goes down and “success” is achieved, often affected people sort of “take their foot off the pedal”, and revert to old behavior patterns. This, of course, will lead to all of the weight going back on. Going back to the analogy of the “entourage” surrounding famous people, similarly, you may find people in your world that will encourage you to revert to old drinking/eating behaviors after you have had success in losing weight: “Oh come on, you look great, you can now drink and eat with us!”.
During your long-term weight control journey, please ensure that you “Handle Success” in a positive manner, i.e. maintaining the focus and keeping on the same plan that helped you lose the weight, without reverting to old behaviors.
And enjoy one of the fun scenes from Almost Famous.
