I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
Thursday afternoon. OK, so I had a kind of epiphany while I was replying to one of the very kind commenters from yesterday's post, and I'm sure you're all going to wonder what is so amazing about this, but here it is: No matter how much work I do on myself, internally and externally, it's always going to be a daily struggle and a lifetime of making the right choices...there is no "destination" where I can stop this, it's just a never-ending journey. This is both a relief (because I've been wondering and worrying about how hard things seem to be lately) and terrifying, all at the same time. Every day, every meal, every second, I will be deciding, over and over again, what is more important to me - my health and the active lifestyle that I want so badly or food and inactivity. I feel strangely liberated by that thought, honestly, so I just had to share.
Wednesday afternoon. I can't believe that I've become one of those "post a few times a week" bloggers. I have been so proud of my regular daily postings and am dismayed to see that my last post was this weekend - this will change, I promise.
So, the recalcitrant child inside me is definitely doing her very best to derail my efforts at being healthy. Yesterday, it was, quite literally, like dragging a sulky teenager behind me on my walk. First, she didn't want to go at all. I paid no attention and got dressed to go. Then, she decided it was critically important to check my email before leaving and then respond to the two or three messages there, delaying our departure by about 15 minutes in the end. Then, she was whining the whole way up the driveway of my condo complex about how much she hated walking and how much it was going to suck. It was at this point that I understood how my parents must have felt from 1980 through 1984. I wanted nothing more than to wring her little neck just to have some peace and quiet. Once I started pushing myself on the walk, all thoughts except those of "yikes, this is tough" and "I can't wait until I can stop" left my head, which was the intended effect. I really hope this is PMS related because spending the next 50 years (I hope!) having to drag myself through walks or jogs or bike rides or whatever just doesn't fill my heart with joy.
Food has been perfect, and it's been a serious battle, too. I've been craving salty, crunchy, greasy foods all week and there just aren't any of those on my prepared meals list (which is, of course, the point of eating the prepared meals). I was watching TV when a potato chip commercial came on and the CRUNCH noise as the actor bit into the chip sent an immediate message to my brain - need chips! I ignored it, but that was followed by a Tac0 Be11 commercial for something with lots of guacamole, sour cream, and melty cheese, which, again, nearly sent me into food craving orbit. It was at that point that I snapped the TV off and decided I should go pick up my prepared meals, which got my mind off of the food and back on my health, thankfully. When I got home, I didn't want the BBQ Salmon that was on my prepared meals list, I wanted tonight's Chicken Enchilada instead. Once again, the whiny voice started in, and, once again, I just ignored it and did what I knew I needed to do anyway.
My big fear now is that these little bouts of rebellion are becoming more frequent and, if it's not just PMS, this really could be what I have to deal with for the rest of my life. Granted, I won't be eating prepared meals and being rigidly strict with myself for the rest of my life (probably only for another 80-100 pounds / 12 months), but I know that, because of my diabetes and my propensity for binge eating, I will never be able to eat unconsciously or according to cravings.
The way I'm working on this is to keep reminding myself that it's about my health, not about my size or my looks or my self esteem. I am happy with myself as I am now, unaltered, I just need to get my blood sugar under control (which is happening - it was 120 last night, down from over 200 the same time last week) and take some of the excess weight around my middle off to help keep my sugars under control and also ease the strain on my back, knees, and ankles. All of my efforts for the Ten Percent Challenge are geared toward those goals and I am also adding a new component of looking at myself in a non-critical way so that I make peace with my stomach as it is right now and stop demonizing it. I hope that I'm making progress in this area, but time will tell for sure.
Ten Percent Challenge update: I weighed in at 246 this morning, which is six of the ten percent I'm shooting for. That's about two pounds a week so far, which is far above what I was expecting and a good sign that what I'm doing is working, especially in conjunction with the lowered blood sugars.
Sunday morning. I've received several reminders in the last few days that I am still a compulsive overeater with low self esteem, albeit (currently) in recovery. The good news is that this gives me something more interesting than just "I ate right, I exercised, I got in my water" to talk about (for which, I'm sure, you're eternally grateful).
First sign that interesting things are cooking in my subconscious is that I had a passing thought (no more than 30 seconds at most) while driving to pick up my healthy meals at Heidi's Frozen Yogurt on Friday night that I should pick up a small, nonfat chocolate yogurt while I was there. What?!? Hello, that's not on the plan, you're not hungry, and you're not going to obsess over food. The thought disappeared as quickly as it had come, but it left me on guard, waiting for the next salvo. Yesterday, it came.
Saturdays are the days that I increase my time for my walks by 10%, so yesterday's walk was to be 24.2 minutes instead of 22 - not such a big difference, or so you would think. Apparently, it was a big difference to my subconscious, because it really dug its heels in and didn't want to go for a walk yesterday. When I started poking and prodding, what came out was, "it's such a long time" and "it's too hard". What?!? Hello, it's only two minutes, twelve seconds longer than your walks last week and only four minutes, twelve seconds longer than the week before. Four minutes! This is not some dreaded forced march in the heat, uphill, this is less than 25 minutes of walking on a flat surface at a comfortable clip. So, I cut myself a deal - I had to do the entire walk, but I could go at a pace that was a little slower, if I really wanted to. Once I got out there, of course, it was fine, as I knew it would be. I didn't push myself, speed-wise, but I kept up a good, solid pace and was slightly winded and very sweaty when I finished.
So, what's behind these little rebellions? Well, it's been just over two weeks now that I've been strictly adhering to the new and improved Ten Percent Challenge guidelines, and things are becoming, for the most part, easier. I'm wondering if the very fact that I've managed two weeks is somehow threatening to something deep down inside. I've said all along that this is about my health and building a body that will be able to live a long, happy, and active life, but, perhaps there's still some part of me that thinks it's about losing weight in order to feel better about myself or to get smaller because I'm disgusted with my body as it is now. If that's the message that's being internalized then I clearly still have some work to do to solidify my intent and get buy in from every part of me. The happy side benefit to this marketing campaign is that it will also shore up my motivation, should it ever lag, and will force me to a position of absolute clarity about my intent and vision for what I'm doing.
As a final thought, I'm stealing something from Self magazine and will answer a different question every day in order to appreciate more of the joy in my life. Sunday's question is: What are you looking forward to in the week ahead? I am really looking forward to my Geneen Roth seminar on Friday. It's all about how to overcome emotional overeating and, although I'm doing pretty well with that right now, I know that I need as much information and as many suggestions as possible, because it is a wily disease and I'm not foolish enough to think that I have all of the answers. In any case, I'll be staying at the hotel overnight, which is always fun, and taking Friday off of work, too. Can't wait!
