Yup. So I weigh 181 pounds. I have weighed 181 pounds since about three months after Will was born. I have gone up and down within five pounds of that range, but for all intents and purposes, I have weighed 181 pounds for 2 years.
I have complained about it, read about it, thought about it, talked about it, accepted it, and been sad about it. The one thing I haven't really, truly, honestly tried is DOING something about it.
Oh sure, I go to the gym occasionally. I don't have endless snacks in the house. I drink diet pepsi and switched from sugar to splenda in my coffee. But let's be honest, I haven't really pushed myself. If I want half of Will's donut, I eat it. If I want Wendy's for lunch, I get it. I'm not really very good at self denial, nor am I very good at "pushing through pain" (unless I wind up with a baby at the end, but that's a different blog). If I hurt, I don't want to go to the gym. So I don't.
I am not disappointed with myself. Let me be clear. I hate the negativity that women have around food and weight. My friends beat themselves up endlessly about the food choices they make and the weight they don't lose, or gain back. I hear successful, beautiful, smart and talented women put themselves down because they don't weigh the "perfect" weight. There was a great article about "fat is the new ugly" that talks about how kids learn that being fat means you're stupid, mean and lazy. They learn this from us, the mothers that talk about the donut we had yesterday as if we had cheated on our husbands and not our diet.
So, I'm not beating myself up. I have made the choices I have made for many reasons, and I have many excuses for not being more diligent about living a healthy lifestyle. I am deciding that I'm going to start making this a priority. When Maggie is spinning like a top in the house, yelling "I'm a molecule!" (thank you Gerald from Sid the Science Kid), I tell her "Control your body!" Today, I start controlling mine. And you, Avid Blog Reader, are going to help me.
I saw a good piece of advice on FB about exercise and I thought I'd share. Perhaps it's not that I hate exercise, perhaps it's that I haven't found what I like to do yet. So I'm embarking on a quest to find an enjoyable kind of exercise. I am committing to exercising every day, some way, some how. I will get out of my comfort zone and try something new at least once a week, even if I feel like an idiot doing it. 90% of my problem is the whole "feeling like an idiot" thing - it kept me from trying a spin class for two years. When I finally did muster up the courage to try spin, the instructor was super nice and helpful, I got my bike set up and after a few minutes of feeling stupid, I realized that not one other person in the class gave a rat's ass about my neurosis. You'd think that a woman who has breast fed in the National Archives would be less inhibited, but there it is.
So, feel free to suggest any exercise you think would be good. I'm going to blog about it and tell my tales. My goal is to lose 10 pounds this month. Wish me luck! Hopefully, I'll be amusing while I'm doing it.
2 comments:
I think chasing our kids is exercise. I am sure pushing your kids on the swings for 20 minutes is exercise. I like using the fitday.com because I can see the exercise show up in a happy graph. All my calories eaten are on another graph. Instead of a "Will work for food" sign I am "will exercise for graphs" kind of person.
I completely relate. I finally got my *ss off the couch and I lost 45 pounds in the last year. I weigh less now than before the two pregnancies -- and before I got married! It is a great feeling. Exercise is key. And portion control. I substitute a Ghiradelli dark chocolate (and not the super intense bitter ones) for dessert after my lunch and dinner, and it really helps to make me feel like my cravings are getting met. So you can lose weight eating chocolate everyday. I am proof of that. When it comes to exercise, you need to find something you are comfortable with, but here is my advice. Begin with the expectation that for the first two months or so, it is going to feel like a chore. You aren't going to wake up tomorrow morning loving exercise and "wanting" to go do it. It takes time to recondition your mind and body. What truly surprised me is that after about the second or third month, it didn't feel like a chore anymore. It didn't hurt as much (because my muscles got more used to it) and it felt good as I saw that it was working. I started to miss it on days that other things came up -- no joke! Most "dieters" don't stick to it long enough to experience this. They give up during that first phase because it feels like torture. If you can just push through that first phrase, until you start seeing some real results, it will give you the wave of momentum to keep going and it will help change how you feel about eating, exercise, and yourself. That is my two cents. I know you can do it. -- Bonnie
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