Archive for the ‘weight loss (again)’ Category
Yesterday, in an effort to rouse the boy from sleeping at a time when most people are already up and mowing the lawn, I yelled downstairs to ask if he’d like some breakfast.
When a suprising “yes” confirmed his interest in eating as well as his actual state of being in the land of the living, I realized I didn’t really have anything remotely healthy to make. I conceded by taking a tube of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls out of the fridge.
I unwrapped the tight, silvery paper and set them on the counter for a mere four seconds while I preheated the oven. As I dialed in the temp (love my convection microwave), a loud “POP!” shattered the silence and startled me.
My first reaction was to look at my jeans. I’d popped a button once before, on a pair of brown dress slacks, and was familiar with the drill: pull down the shirt, find a jacket and some safety pins and hunker down behind a desk for 8 straight hours. In retrospect, it was a humiliating experience but I was fortunate it had been the front and not the back blown out. Lucky for me, I was home and could change before anyone noticed.
Convinced I’d blown the button and it’d dented (or worse, chipped) my stove, I felt around for evidence. Nothing.
Still curious, I set the oven temperature and went back to my tube of cinnamony goodness to discover the roll of rolls had popped itself. Instead of a perfect cardboard cylinder, doughy bits now squirted free of their squished situation, puffing through the grease-spotted cardboard seams. I just nodded and smiled sympathetically as I twisted the can to let the little ones out of their confinement. I have more in common with Poppin’ Fresh than most people know–and I’m not talking the giggle when he gets poked.
Here’s the thing that has always stymied me in the last 755 times I’ve tried to diet: the mindset of it being a change of life.
Not that I don’t get the fact that I have to eat less and exercise more (or exercise at all, as it is now). I know scarfing handfuls of mini Snickers won’t help my thighs tighten and my gut disappear. But the problem I really have is the idea that I have to “stick” to a diet “plan” forever.
This is probably the real reason I never keep on the eating portion of the plan. I might just think in my brain, from the start, that since I can’t eat sunflower seeds with every meal for the R.O.M.L. (rest of my life), (the Flat Belly Diet), can’t drink a gallon of water before each meal (one of those crazy Women’s World diets…right next to the chocolate cake on the cover), or skip a meal and eat a protein bar (ugh..never again will I consider a bar or shake a meal) I may as well do a half-assed job from the start and save the energy.
This makes absolutely no sense. To keep going on diets and know I won’t stick with them. Stupid, stupid. And I’m not just saying this because I’ve not really “dieted” since I said I was going on a diet. I am trying to make better choices. Today was the first day I didn’t shove in a bunch of junk around the 3pm hour because I was starving and not making dinner til 6. I dragged the hub out to walk with me (but took a nap first). It ain’t perfect but I’m trying to figure this out according to MY abilities and strengths.
I know what’s wrong and what’s right with my eating and exercise habits. I’m going to lose the weight without dieting according to someone else’s standards. Just think of the money I’ll save (but I will still watch the infomercials)
Most people mark the milestones and memories of their lives in terms of events: first kisses, graduations, job promotions, marriages, births, deaths…the list is as endless as those happenings with which humans associate meaning.
I, on the other hand, measure my days and decades by recalling what diet I was on when something happened. Junior prom, cabbage soup. Wedding, hi carb/low fat . Post pregnancy, low carb/no fat. First job, Slim in 6. Second job: Atkins. Third job: South Beach. Grad school graduation…
You get the idea. If a diet has been created or even hinted about, I’ve been on it. I can’t remember a time after 7th grade, when I was one of two size Ls on the order form for volleyball shorts, that I wasn’t looking for some mystical, magical way to lose weight.
Actually, I can. The last three weeks I’ve been dietless and feeling a strange, unfamiliar longing for food boundaries to break. The boys went to Florida three weeks ago and left me alone to purge my soul with half-a-dozen cream-filled babies from Jolly Pirate. The week after, Vegas. From that point til now, it’s amazing I haven’t gnawed off the finger of some innocent bystander along the way. I need food structure.
I’ve been contemplating going back on the diet wagon. I even know which one I’ll follow (Flat Belly Diet by Prevention, again). I even have thoughts of planned exercise and exertion to help aide my efforts. I just hadn’t figured out that perfect starting point, until this weekend.
I turned 38 on Saturday. That’s pretty close to 40. No, I didn’t realize this until my birthday dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Somewhere between the end of the Chicken Marsala and the beginning of the Lemon Raspberry cheesecake, my mental gears clicked into action and the subtraction was finished. Every day past 38 is one day closer to 40. Maybe it was something in the Marsala sauce* that sharpened my rusty-dull math skills, but 40 kind of freaks me out. Is that middle age?
Lost in whipped cream mounds (the boy doesn’t eat his. I swear he’s adopted), I decided that I want to hit 40 with a body I’ve never had. Something in a size 10 (or, god forbid, an 8, please.) I’ve never been in single digit sizes, unless you count that brief interlude of time where I started at 6X and ended at ten, bypassing everything in between. I think that was 4th grade, but I digress…
So, long story short, I’m back on the diet wagon. This time, I’m hoping public humiliation, aka blogging, will help shame me into doing what I know I’ve got to do to lose this flab once and for all. If not, Jolly Pirate is on my way home….
*must get that recipe…after diet succeeds, of course