Today an old friend from high school reminded me, “working
out is 5%, diet is 90% and rest is the other 5%” when it comes to healthy
living. Awesome. I’ve got 5% of it down. The healthy eating thing continues to plague
me and I’m back to being so frustrated with myself. Weighing myself weekly has
become a joke. I hate the scale. It
reads the same number back at me every week these days. I’m not surprised by that—I know what I’ve
put into my body throughout the week. At run clinic sessions I feel so heavy
and burdened…I liken it to carrying a blue kettlebell (35 lbs) of excess weight
with me all the time. I know my lower back pain flares up because I’m arching
my back, overcompensating for the weight that’s sitting in the front. My whole body is screaming at me to stop the
madness and get lean. It’s not that I don’t
know what to do to lose this stupid bundt cake attached to the front of my
torso. It comes down to beating the
voices in my head that say, “you can’t do it.” At the root of my inability to
become a healthy weight is me buying in to a bunch of excuses:
“you’ve never had defined abs so what makes you think you could
have them now in your 30’s”
“you just had a baby. Your skin is stretched, you’re
retaining water, you’re of course going to look dumpy because of what your body
went through last year”
“you inherited the body shape of an apple on stilts so you
are genetically predisposed to looking this way…forever”
“running long distance doesn’t result in weight loss. Once you
run 14K and over your body holds on to every calorie you consume so it has
energy to make it through the next long run. As long as you keep running half
marathons you are not going to lose weight”
“you don’t have time to meal prep”
“it’s not worth choking down protein shakes and kale. Food
should be enjoyed—live to eat, not eat to live”
“you don’t have the willpower—you’re not mentally strong
enough to stick to it”
“35 pounds is a scary number—it’s a lot of weight which
means it will take a really long time. It’s too overwhelming”
“I don’t look THAT bad right now. I can get away with how I look
right now and embrace my mediocrity”
“you’ve been trying to lose this weight for 2 years. You haven’t
done it yet. What makes you think you’re going to do it ever”
I don’t think those voices of doubt will ever go away. But
what I need to do is create a response to every one of those fears and excuses.
“F*@# you” is a start but I can be a bit more uplifting to myself than that. Here’s
what I’m going to do starting right now:
-
Write down everything I eat. I bought a journal
to do this 3 weeks ago and haven’t had the nerve to start yet. Trish (bootcamp
instructor) is going to review it once a week
-
Text everything I eat to my friend Sarah who
will review it once a day (thanks SK!!) This way on a daily and weekly basis I’ve
got to think about my food choices and people will hold me accountable
-
Go back to drinking lots of water. I’ve been substituting coffee in there a lot
these days. 3L minimum a day!!
-
Make black and white rules for myself so there
is no room for bad decisions made at moments of weakness (like camping, take
out food, etc.)
-
Focus only on a small interim goal for now. I’m
headed to Winnipeg for a wedding on August 9.
One month, and the goal is 8 pounds.
Aggressive, yes! That is what I
need or else I make many excuses for myself and cheat
Another old friend from my days in Edmonton also gave me a
great mantra recently: “you WILL eat again.”
So true; there is never a need to hammer back food like the apocalypse
is here. And one last quote that I have
been thinking about every day: “if you want to look different, you have to do
something different.”
So, who is going to join me on the quest to conquer 90% of
the battle?
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