I imagine everybody, thin, fat or at a perfect weight has 'bleugh' days when they don't feel very inspired to do much. Today everything is taking such an effort. I feel like I am wading through treacle. All I want to do is sit and wallow. Yes, sounds like depression but it's not - it's sort of a fed-upness with it all, a conscious reality-check of how I am spending my days and I KNOW only I can do something about it.
I feel I have to grab life by the shirt collar and really LIVE it - you know? I am wasting so much precious time almost preparing for how life will be when I am a thinner version of me - which is completely stupid! Today...right now in fact - is all we have for sure. There can't be a golden time when it all comes together and I am transformed. Life doesn't work like that.
I have been inspired by reading blogs about former big people who now look svelte and fit. Life has opened up for them, and every single person who has succeeded in losing weight is urging on others to make the same transformation - because they KNOW life is so much better for them as a slim person. Not only that, it's obvious from reading that they feel mentally stronger and up for challenges. (I feel mentally flabby most days) I read and am impressed, but I feel I am at the bottom of the mountain and they are up there at the top..yelling at me to come and join them. All I can think about is how difficult it is going to be for me to climb up there...Having said that, every person who has succeeded has mentioned that they've done it one day at a time, one good choice at a time...and we can all do that too. Except on days where we feel bad about ourselves. I am having one of those days...and nothing much matters. A grey fog has descended. I feel a bit of a loser.
I'll try and keep this short. (Hear the trumpet fanfare!) If my diet is good I'll feel better. If I try with real conviction to stick to a plan I'll feel better. If I move more and achieve, I'll feel better. If I go out into the fresh air I'll feel better. If I drink a glass of water instead of 'having a little treat' I'll feel better. If I have faith in myself that I can REALLY lose weight and work towards it I'll feel better.
Today I am trying very hard to find that faith in myself. I am wallowing today. I am not living. I am wasting pressure minutes, hours, moments doing nothing...merely existing.
Fat or not fat...this is my life to live...so I am going to have a glass of water, then I'll brush my hair, put on my shoes and go for a walk. I am trying to grab back this (so far) wasted day, a day in which I have felt miserable, fat and fairly hopeless. I'll think about how I can end today on a high note.
I think we all have to aim to shake ourselcves up a bit when we feel we are coasting/wallowing. I am a thinker, not a doer...and oh how I can bring myself down by thinking too much! I get a feeling that fat people can bring themselves down quicker than slim people who are active and doing. It's perhaps not the 'fat' and 'slim' bits that matter as much as the 'active and doing.' THOSE are the key words.
Join me? Lets just DO something...and move ourselves out of the big, fat gloomy place we sometimes find ourselves in.
Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.
~ Earl Nightingale ~
I think you have it right. Doing is the thing that gets you slim. I too have a tendency to overthink, over research, over analyse everything. I have head knowledge aplenty but it takes putting it into action, in my case literally step by step, to get the results we envision for ourselves. Gosh, that sounds preachy and priggish. How about, yes, you're right, get out there and just do it.
ReplyDelete"...because they KNOW life is so much better for them as a slim person."
ReplyDeleteNo, they say that, but why are they spending all of their time still talking about their weight loss and bodies?
OK, this is one of the things which gets me about people who stand around talking about weight loss as if it has transformed them into new people - they aren't new people. They are the old people in new bodies. They're still obsessed with weight. They're still defined by their bodies. They're still preoccupied with food. It's just a different weight, a different body, and different food. If they were really moving on to bigger and better things, they wouldn't be spending all of their time working on their bodies or talking about them.
I'm simply not impressed by people who are thin versions of their former personalities. At the end of all of this, I want to be something other than defined by my body and weight/food lifestyle. So many people become fitness nuts after losing weight. Is that living it up? Are they now living to inspire? Do they create anything? Are their lives somehow fuller and better than before in terms of adding something of value to the universe?
I'm actually not being cynical here, though it may sound that way. I don't even read blogs by people who talk about weight loss and have already lost all of the weight they need to lose because they're more obsessed than people who are still fat and trying to lose weight. They still talk about running marathons and post their BMI stats. The ones who are really living it up aren't talking about weight at all.
I agree that there isn't a "golden time" which comes together when you lose weight. The time *is* now. Your weight doesn't hold you back unless you let it or unless it actually is causing a severe enough health issue. Once you reach a certain point, your mobility and ability to cope with the greater world is no longer an issue, and you can live regardless of how wide your ass is.
The thing is that life as a thin person isn't that different from your life as a fat one in most cases. This is one of the reasons why people regain weight. They find that it wasn't transformative to simply be thin. The real transformation is about the choices you make and how you spend your days. Being thin has nothing to do with that.
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ReplyDeleteOh FG, you are doing it. Just the fact that you're thinking about it and moving out the door. It's hard to pick yourself up when you are down, but you are doing it, and inspiring me to keep doing it!
ReplyDeleteOuch. I'm guilty of everything you wrote above SFG. Yes, I've managed to get rid of a significant amount of weight. Yes, I sill spend a great deal of time talking (thinking about, blogging about, encouraging others to, and generally obsessing) about getting excess pounds off.
I was feeling guilty, as though I am doing a disservice to someone by talking about weight loss and bodies just because I have gotten to a certain number on the scale or BMI chart. I have to take umbrage with your comment about life as a thinner person not being different. It is.
I am transformed. Seven months ago, I couldn't walk without hurting. Seven months ago, I couldn't rise from the floor without making a shift to my knees, hands, holding on to something and then pulling my bulk up.
Seven months ago, I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without becoming breathless.
So, one of the reasons I still spend a great deal of time thinking and talking about weight loss is so I can keep the fat girl who is still lurking in this weak brain of mine, away from the candy aisle in the grocery store. The other reason I'm still reading these blogs of ours and commenting on them is because I want others to experience this transformation.
I had a very naughty typo on my comment above FG so I had to delete that previous comment...sorry.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you're having a down day. They happen to every body every where. Do what you need to do to feel better.
ReplyDeleteLori
FG: How can I support you?
ReplyDeleteAwareness precedes change and you are becoming aware--the first step.
I too struggle with how slow this process is and have slimming envy, but watching my friend B transform has been AMAZING. I want what she has. And it is not about the smaller/fancy clothes or sashaying around in a new bod.
It is the doors that have been opened to her that she just couldn't see when she was fat:
• Life beyond work, home, family
• Lifetime dreams of scuba diving
• Moving from a sedentary inside life to the wonderful world outside (and she lives in Alaska...it doesn't get much prettier than that)
• Self esteem boom, feeling worthy for being alive
• Health (this one would be enough, on its own!)
Get out the door and throw yourself around in the garden for an hour and then come back and over a tall glass of water write about how it made you feel.
Jo
~This is why regaining our health and loosing weight is a journey. It is up and down emotionally as well as physically. Just know that you are NOT alone on your journey. There are many of us cheering you on. We WILL all change because of our journey-hopefully all for the better and LESS of us!
ReplyDeleteHere is one little story to bring a smile, maybe: On a recent trip to LA with my beloved husband, we ate lunch at a well-known ocean side restaurant. I ate super well and healthy and was feeling a bit self righteous (I can eat out and stay on plan!!). Well,a little trip to the loo to brought me back to reality. As I exited the water closet, guess what trailed along with me?? Yep, you guessed it! TP streaming all the way from the loo... a.....long....trail....of....white...white... toilet paper.....Of course, I did not notice the trail, so wrapped up in my little triumph was I. Thank goodness for the alert hostess who saved some of my remaining dignity. Moral of the story: A little self-righteousness can come back to bite us in the butt!!!
You will succeed in your journey and it is one day at a time!
the hardest steps are always the first and you are well past those... I think it is great how you ended your post.. going for a walk.. and the quote was fitting... You are right .. all we have is this very moment.. use it well.. if you need some quiet down time fine.. but just remember to soon pick up and get going .. you really do feel better.. I am learning that the hard way too.. I also have a long road to travel.. wishing you the best and hoping your day ended on a sweet note!
ReplyDeleteI can be a wallower, too. That is a great analogy, the newly thin yelling down at us from the top of the mountain.
ReplyDeleteYeah, sometimes I want to shout, "Keep the weight off for a couple of years, then we'll talk!" But, that's just jealousy. I'm not just a wallower, I'm a jealous wallower, the worst kind.
I hope you feel better after your walk. I'm going to make myself walk tonight, too, and I will think of you.
There you go, grump. Skinny Jesuses come to offer you salvation if you just join their religion. Be thin, and ye shall be healed! Be thin, and ye shall be saved! Be thin, and you shall be transformed into a creature of radiance and beauty.
ReplyDeleteAll you have to do is become one with the diet culture, and salvation is all yours. I'll miss you over here where I live among the handful of heathens who don't believe life begins at thinness.
Sorry, sometimes all the cult-like stuff has an effect on me. Sorry, skinny ladies! You can say I'm jealous or something if that'll make you feel better. I'm not, but you can tell yourself that anyway. I won't mind a bit.
I'm with SFG. Would I like to lose some weight? Yup. Do I read weight loss blogs? Yup. But I get really peeved with the religious fervour mixed with self-loathing that permeates most of these sites.
ReplyDeleteGo take a walk. I hope the weather's nice where you are. It's looking mighty cloudy here.
One thing your post and the comments have inspired me to do now: yoga breathing, followed by my yoga exercises.
Bye for mow.
SFG wrote: "All you have to do is become one with the diet culture, and salvation is all yours. I'll miss you over here where I live among the handful of heathens who don't believe life begins at thinness."
ReplyDeleteHey SFG..you impart so much wisdom relating to the business of eating well and losing weight. I hear you! I am far too long in the tooth to accept popular belief as my own. I despise so many aspects of the slimming industry..and I have written about them.
All I do know is that I am sitting here with a tyre round my middle and extra padding on my limbs and backside and it brings me down. I can't see myself as a thin woman...visualisation isn't working, just as diet pills and gyms don't work for me either. However, fat women/men HAVE lost weight.. I don't for one minute think I shall be transformed in some way because I become a slimmer version of myself. I'll be me, in a smaller body, but I do think I'll engage with the world more. My fatness is bringing me down, despite all my "I am worthy and wonderful just as I am" self-talk. I am finding my way and recording my thoughts. I think there are MANY people out there who have struggled just as I do. Their way might not be my way and I abhor the whole industry created around the fat person - and what it does to their well-being. Their methods might not be mine, but their thoughts and reasoning DOES inspire me when, for me, losing even one pound seems to be such an onerous task. Your thoughts make me look at my 'weight loss/healthier me through sensible eating' plans too.
I'll take encouragement wherever I can find it and there is LOTS of it in the land of weight-loss blogs - from fat people still struggling, from fat people making a break-through, from fat people trying new plans, from formerly fat people finding the benefits of living life at a lower weight. I can be as cynical as they come, but I do need inspiration to keep me going. There are times when I am not mentally strong..so as far as I am concerned, reading about the success of others does no harm at all. Those who have lost weight offer encourageement too. I am not about to invest in some wacky weight loss scheme because my whole life revolves around dieting. My life isn't wholly about 'fat me' but I did start a blog because I read about the days of others who were overweight and could relate to their feelings. There is no right or wrong way..there is a way that suits us. I am able to discern what way suits me, but I DO want to live life in a smaller body...not because I'll miraculously transform into wonder woman, but because sadly, my outlook on life HAS changed, and not for the better, as my body has grown bigger.