I was just rereading some of my early posts to see if I could remotivate myself to eat to eat healthy again. I realized that I said the word, “try” a lot, but I didn’t actually DO anything. lol… I came across an article in Natural Health magazine about change [not in the political sense], and how resistant we can be to it. I used to think I was good with change. When I was younger I had a lot of it all the time with a somewhat volatile homelife, and we moved often enough that I was forced to start over with school and friends a few times in key years where it probably would have been better if we hadn’t moved. I never really ‘graduated’ from any of my schools because I’d move before I got to the last grade the school taught.
Maybe I had so much change that subconsciously I decided if I didn’t have to change something as I got older, I just wouldn’t. Who knows… but I did just order a book about it by Ariane De Bonvoisin called The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Any Change (and Loving Your Life More). I’m hoping it’ll give me some pointers on how to make lasting changes like eating healthy, getting 8 hours of sleep per night, etc. Things I’ve struggled with pretty much my entire life. I do have the exercise thing down. I’m not sure how that happened. I guess I started with an open mind and no expectations. I started slow and didn’t beat myself up and started to enjoy how I felt vs. thinking of exercise as punishment. I was always athletic as a kid, but I never knew it. Of course how could you not be if you rollerskated, biked, swam, hiked, skied, skated, and played almost every sport your school offered?
I never thought I was athletic because I didn’t know I had asthma and figured I huffed and puffed my way through physical activity because I was ‘out of shape’… and I figured I was ‘fat’ because my legs weren’t as skinny as my friends’ legs were because I had no concept of body type and the fact that I carried more muscle than most of the girls I knew. I was called “chunky” a lot by my friends parents, and assumed they meant I was fat – I had no idea the term could pertain to being muscular. Not masculine, but just more muscular than all my tiny, skinny friends. If I HAD known, I probably wouldn’t have obsessed about my weight and every morsel I put in my mouth. I always assumed I was doomed to look like my mother who was probably considered obese.
So between too much negative change and even more negative self-image I now have a running sabateur in my brain. One that thinks I deserve ‘rewards’ but then also berates me for not being a perfect 10. It’s tough to break through all of that because I DON’T consciously think about it most of the time… And when I do make conscious efforts to eat better, I can hear that whisper telling me I deserve chips or cookies… that I don’t have to go to bed on time – I can keep watching TV… and I find myself whispering back, ‘okay….’ because it’s easier to give in and enjoy my ‘freedom’ than it is to make real changes that require work and planning.
To say I’m sick of the push-pull and the ridiculous cycle is an understatement. There are so many things I just don’t do because of my weight. I have been dying to go skiing again. I haven’t gone in probably 15 years now, but it’s a sport I loved so much when I was younger. Up until recently, I never felt like I was in good enough shape and have been afraid of injuring myself because skiing takes a lot of strength, coordination and endurance to do and if you’re not 100%, the potential for injury goes way up… I realized I was in no condition to go skiing [downhill, anyway...] when I tried skating for the first time in years and felt like someone had stolen my real body and gave me one that just didn’t work. I used to skate for HOURS a day when I was a kid! I was good at it! I never took lessons, but I taught myself a lot of fun stuff watching the kids that did take figure skating. The day I tried to skate again after years of not skating I felt like my body had betrayed me and even though nothing embarrassing happened, I didn’t enjoy it and I vowed not to bother again until I lost weight. Well… that was probably 12 or 13 years ago and I’m pretty sure I weighed a lot less back then, than I do now.
I am realizing that my weight isn’t such an important factor anymore because my strength, flexibility and endurance are so much better now – so I feel like I’ve lost a lot more weight than I have. So every extra pound I drop will be like a bonus. I’m not starting from scratch. I’ve been exercising regularly [4-6 times per week] for 10 months now and I’ve gradually upped the challenge to the point where I can get through a 45 minute ‘Turbo Jam’ cardio workout with weighted gloves on, which amazes me. And it didn’t take months for that to happen, only a couple of weeks for my body to adjust to the new moves. That is pretty awesome. So, now I’m at the point where my thinking has shifted from ‘I just want to feel healthy, I don’t care about my weight’ to ‘if I feel this good now, imagine how great my body will feel if I lost 60 lbs!’
At my peak of physical activity and performance as a teen I weighed 150 lbs – and I was 13. I grew a few more inches since then… so I think 60 lbs is a good number to go for because it’ll put me at a healthy weight that’ll be easy to maintain vs. going for a stupid number on the scale that barely works for an anorexic supermodel who’s 6 inches taller than I am! lol… I’ve accepted my body shape and the fact that I’m not ‘light as a feather’ – I honestly don’t care. I think women like Jessica Biel, with her strong, yet feminine body are worlds more attractive than the Kate Moss-types [or Keira Knightly as shown above]. Now it boils down to making the changes I need to make to get there…
