Sanity Post...

Okay, you can back out right now if you want. This whole post is going to be about my crazy head around weight. I am going to write a bunch of things that everyone already knows but that I need to reinforce for myself right now. I'm not lo0king for a pep talk or an atta girl or even sympathy, I'm trying to make sure I don't tip myself into either complete apathy or extreme behavior, so I'm writing.

Understand? Okay, I'll see you tomorrow if you're noping out. It's all good.

ANYWAY...

So to start this year I decided to actually focus on the weight loss. I told you that I wanted to. I either need to lose 15-20 pounds or I need to stop thinking I need to lose 15-20 pounds. I'm starting with trying to lose it. I'm doing it all really reasonably. I set my goal for a half pound a week. I mean, that's about as gentle as I can be. I redid my workouts to do a 10 day cycle so I could get over the blahs of the old routine. I want to get a good mix of weights and cardio and balance and still get one PT session for my achilles to keep that working smoothly. I'm using Oura to track my movement and my sleep cycles, and I'm using Cronometer to track my eating.

And I'm being really honest about it all. Like not writing down things I didn't eat to pad numbers and not skipping writing down things I eat out of wanting to look good on paper. The workouts have gone well. They all range between 30-60 minutes. Splitting the cardio off from the weights has been a good idea as far as being motivated to work everyday knowing that I'm not looking at 1 1/2 to 2 hours of work. I also know that I need to add some more movement into my weekends. I mean, I knew that before but seeing how sedentary I am on the weekend in black and white really enforced that. (To be fair it's not gardening season so that would look differently if I had yard work to do)

And the first week went above and beyond great. I more than hit my target loss. Now (and you can still back out because I'm going to get a little gross) I did just come off of the December holidays where I ate more gluten than normal. I haven't had any gluten since then so that first week was my body, let's say, eliminating the evidence that I had backed up the works with gluten. But still...I was pretty pleased.

And then this week I put back on every bit of it. Literally. Stepped on the scale this morning and I weigh exactly what I weighed on January 1st. What the actual fuck? I haven't eaten any gluten, everything seems to be moving at the correct pace, I haven't eaten any more than I did last week overall, I worked out everyday. Fuck.

Now what I would tell a friend...

It's only been two weeks since you really started paying attention. Weight fluctuates a lot. Especially after a holiday season with extra salt and sweets and gluten. It's fine. Just keep doing what you are doing and reevaluate at the end of January. If it's not working by then, then you can change it up. This is going to be a slow process, you had already decided it would be a slow process so don't beat yourself up now for it being slow.

Look at the wins. You followed your new workout plan. You logged your food and actually remembered to weigh things. You did all of that without triggering yourself to stop eating, that's great. You discovered that you seem to be eating a good balance, with some areas that you can look at and tweak, but nothing catastrophic for sure.

You committed to doing this for the first two months of the year and looking at it then to see if it's working for you, and you are only two weeks in. Don't worry about it now. Just keep doing what you are doing and check back in with measurements at the end of the month. You're fine. There is no reason to stress about this. And besides, stress makes you hold on to weight so it would be counterproductive anyway.

And these are the sorts of things I will try to keep reminding myself of while part of my brain is screaming obscenities and swinging wildly from why even bother trying to lose weight just eat all of the yummy things and fuck societal expectations about weight and another part is screaming why even bother eating at all you know you just want to be thinner and you know how to do that so fucking do it.

Yeah, it's busy up there right now.

My head is always a mess about weight. The progress I've made over the years is to admit that my head is always a mess about weight. And to step back and ask myself what I would say to a friend about the exact same issues. To ask myself why I can look at someone who is even larger than me and think how beautiful they are when I can't seem to give myself the same grace.

I'd like to say those things have "cured" me but they haven't. What they have done is give me a few tools to use to try and prevent my own self destructive tendencies. And that's a win.

So this year as I work on trying to either lose that weight or lose that expectation of losing that weight I'm going to pull out my toolbox and use all of the tools I have to keep myself on a healthy track. Which means you might get a few more of these posts in your inbox where I tell you that you don't have to read them. But they keep me honest. Accountability is one of my best tools.

And writing helps me work through the frustration. Better out than in. Better on the page than in my head.

Thanks for being part of my support group. Even if you didn't realize that's what you were signing up for. (Insert cute winky face emoji here)