Two pounds.
Two. (2). Two pounds. And one inch off my spare tire but exactly the same everywhere else I measured.
Fuck. That.
You can see now why I haven't updated. I was extremely let down, and felt like a complete failure despite eating fucking vegetables and iced tea for another goddamn month. Like most weight loss ventures, this one started out really fast but then slowed down, probably because my body got used to eating normal (well, what's supposed to be normal) food, and also because my fat ass is still so sedentary.
I gave myself a few days to finish feeling sorry for myself and to formulate my plan for my next leg of this journey.
I'll be going a little longer in between "relaxation periods", so I'm making this next one a Whole45 instead of a Whole30. If nothing else, even if nothing changes, I know it's not going to hurt me to eat meat, fruit and vegetables for 50% more of a stretch than I was.
There's a rule in the Whole30 program that if you go off-plan food-wise (like, if you eat a donut or drink a beer or something) it's not the end of the world, but it does mean you've ended your streak and you have to start over at Day 1. I am proud of myself for staying on target with the food for each 30-day stretch, but I'm putting in a new rule for myself: exercise. And if I go a day without exercise, then I start over at Day 1.
I very much do not want to do any starting over in the middle. My whole adult life has been about starting over in the middle of a fucking weight loss campaign.
After the Whole45, during the rest period, I can exercise or not exercise (just like I can eat a burger or not eat a burger), but during the program itself I am requiring myself to put in the time and the sweat.
I hypothesize that adding exercise will not only help with the weight loss (two pounds, come fucking ON, what the fuck is that nonsense) but it'll also improve my skin. One of the most frustrating things about this thing is hearing from so many people that they had glowing clear skin after they did a Whole30 and mine still looks like it did when I was 15.
The rule for exercise is one time per day, jogging to the park by my house and around the two duckponds and home. Walking is ok as long as I maintain the distance, but jogging or interval walking/ jogging is ideal. I'll be using the Couch to 5K app on my phone to try and up my stamina, and finally making good use of all the "Stress-Free" and "Upbeat" and "Workout" playlists on my damn Spotify.
Another rule I'm still kicking around is social media. I may want to go without for the 45 day period. I still want to journal in this blog, but I can see from the page count that the readership has dwindled way back down (and I'm pretty sure the few hits I get are from when I log in to check if I misspelled anything in a previous post) so I'm not worried about any imaginary "responsibility" to my "fans", and while Facebook and Twitter are fun, people tend to get wrapped up in their own shit. They're not going to be worried if I don't post anything for a while.
If I can admit something, it kind of hurt my feelings that a bunch of my theatre friends are passing around this "tag, you're it, post three photos of yourself dancing!" chain thingy and no one tagged me. I know, I know, it's so fucking middle-school and I am smiling and rolling my eyes at myself.
But I was a dancer. I was really good. I was a Featherette the year we took first in California State Championships. I danced at two 49er halftimes. And I danced in the Voodoo Lounge in Dublin and never had to pay for a drink the whole time I lived there. And I'm tall - which means all I fucking did in the theatre during my youth was fucking ensemble. Which translates to, oh guess what: dancing.
And now look at me - sitting in one place for ages, or lumbering from place to place so that the people who know me and see me every day don't even think of me as someone who's ever danced, let alone a "dancer".
I fucking love dancing. And I'm going to keep doing it, and loving it, no matter what I look like. And I promise myself that tonight is the last time I'm going to think about that stupid photo thing. It's dumb, and there's nothing wrong with my friends having fun: these bad feelings are my own apathy and selfishness, no one's been unkind or uncool with me. I'm oversensitive about this whole stupid weight loss thing. I know this.
And that's the end of that.
NOW. Another rule for Whole45 has to be that all my meals are prepared by me. I ate a lot of raw foods during my second Whole30, mainly because I didn't have time or energy to prepare stuff at home (particularly for lunch) and so that meant a lot of celery, a lot of bananas and almond butter, etc. This will require a lot of planning and careful budgeting, which is daunting but I am determined. I am committed to cooking more nutritious foods for myself regardless of my weight, so there's no time like the present to get all this going.
And another rule: stress reduction. Maybe meditation. The exercise will help with this but I'm thinking like...ten minutes of silent meditation or something will help get me through 45 days of hard(er) work. And will likely help me cope with it when the results are less than I hope.
There's a lot of extra garbage on me to lose and I'm so tired, I'm so tired of carrying it around. I want to let it go, but it's not as easy as "dropping" it, I have to kind of...grapple it away. So that's what I'll be doing.
Tomorrow I'm catching up on some sleep and planning out 45 days of a program for myself. Dana's Whole45 Adventure begins on Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment