Yup. I'm trying again. I'm hoping I'll have more success than last year, or the year before, or the year before - one of the bad things about having a blog for SIX FREAKING YEARS, almost, is that you can see how badly you are on the hamster wheel - when you realize that you have made the same unrealized resolutions every year for six years, and that they generally involve the same problems, the same approaches, and the same non-solutions, it's kind of a slap in the face. So far, the only thing that's different is that I am writing this in December, rather than January. Shocking.
But know what else I'm realizing? I'm only getting fatter, and I am not an attractive fat woman. Many fat women have beautiful faces which compensate for their fat bodies, drawing the eye upward as it were. My face is normal - perhaps I have nice eyes, and I'm very animated, but seen in repose I'm nothing super-special. I'm just me, with a moon-faced smile and little beady eyes. Once, there were cheekbones in there, but even those are gone. Sigh. I've always known I was normal looking, which kind of took the pressure off - I figured as long as I was clean, I had on lipstick and my hair was good, that was about as good as it was going to get and, having done my best, I could relax and let my personality be the main event. Well, not even my fantastic, genetically-blessed, artfully-dyed head of hair is cutting it for me these days. Plus, nothing ages you more than looking fat, unless it's wrinkly skin. I have good skin, but it ain't going to last forever, short of moving to Hollywood and selling my soul for skincare products.
And, of course, there's the usual tripe about My Family History. My parents are diabetics, my dad has a bum liver thanks to a genetic enzyme thingie, and he and my aunt are celiac sufferers - I'm genetically doomed. I suspect the celiac comes off Dad's side of the family - his Italian-born grandfather succumbed in his 70's to colon problems, and at the end of his pasta-loving life could tolerate nothing but baby food without having massive, massive stomach problems. Celiac, anyone? Moms side of the family comes with a bevy of heart and cholesterol problems, which I do not appear to have (beyond Mitral Valve Prolapse, but that's pretty common.) It weighs on me, though, that I am 41 and I do not exercise; the time in my life when my healthy bloodwork would carry me through is coming to an end.
I have sworn myself to one goal for 2012: This Is The Year I Change My Life. It's a huge goal, for sure, but there are so many good things in my life that need to be supported by changing the bad things! Well, not bad - there's nothing bad about my normal little life. It's just . . . unproductive? Lazy? I don't expect to turn into some compulsive Type A Super Mom - never happen - but I keep thinking that just some tweaks would let me take advantage of the goodness, and push back the bad things that I feel waiting around the bend. So, we shall see. We shall see.
Meantime, simple things: I apparently took the doctor's weight-loss advice as an invitation to Mainline Sweet Tea, because that's what I've been doing. God, but I love sweet tea!!! I don't know whether to take advantage of my lack of tea yesterday (I buy it from drive-throughs, rather than making it at home), or give myself a break for the next three days and drink whatever I like before going on an abstinence purge next week? One thing about it - tea isn't the problem. White sugar is the problem. Hmmm. . . .
And carbs. Breakfast today was a plate of leftover rice cooked with boiled pork, and a cup of coffee with a ton of sugar. Glycemic index, anyone? There has been no lunch yet, because we are Going Out, but cannot until I dry my pants in the washer - another problem of being fat is that Nothing Fits. Ugh. And since lunch likely won't happen until about 3 pm, shouldn't that be dinnah? And yet, BD will come in the door around six wanting to eat dinnah, and none of us will be hungry. . . ugh. But we have to go to the grocery store, so we hve to eat. . . . maybe sandwiches for the kidlets? Oh, I got it: BD's favorite food: Hamburger Helper!!! That's the ticket! I HATE Hamburger Helper, so clearly that's what I should cook.
We shall see, eh?
7 comments:
I think you need to bite off some more manageable goals or steps than "Change my Life." No fair self-sabotaging by overwhelming yourself right off the bat. Plus, it could be more well-defined. You could "change your life" by being hit by a bus, or becoming a moonshiner....not that I'd recommend either.... ;-)
Well, I have now-dead relatives who ran shine, so that would just be following in a Family Tradition, hah!
No, I think I need the big goal overarching, because I find it motivating. Then, I can look at what I do every day and think to myself, "Is this Changing My Life, or is the same old shit?" For example, when I whip through the drive through and order the big sweet tea for $1, is that Changing My Life, or is that Kick-Starting My Diabetes? I'm not kidding when I say that my body has hit maximum heft - I am stiff and sore and lumbering everywhere, and I am so not used to being that - it makes me feel old. So, my life needs Changing. Otherwise, I'm going to be having the same conversation with you in 2022 - hee! Except that my parents will likely be dead, and that's changing a bunch of stuff, huh?
I HAVE to do this too. I have been thinking about my options. Joining a blog thing an old friend of mine has going on, doing weight watchers for the 18th million time, argh! The biggest thing I lack is consistency and accountability. So, that must be you guys. I am going to look over your healthy recipes. I have got to do it with small changes or I will quit. I need to have a good treat at least once a week. But I also need structure. Argh. I think I will post my goal as a blog post, and then update you guys as to how it is going. I also need to get this blog on my fancy new phone. That should be easy enough. I do not plan on doing anything good until January 3. I plan on making a chocolate almond cherry cake today, and on going to the movies on Monday.
Go get 'em, Tigers!
Mel, I do like the "Is this here part of changing my life, or the same old shit" dichotomy. I just didn't want you to set up some stark, quick, difficult to achieve goals all at once that would be more discouraging than encouraging.
Really--cutting out the sweet tea by itself will make a big diff. And then maybe work on portion sizes rather than 'cutting, cutting, cutting.'
I'm not a fan of movie popcorn. I never get it with the additional butter--and you don't have to--you can get it right out of the popper for less calories. But my problem is they put SO MUCH SALT on it, that halfway through a small bag and I feel like I've skinned my tongue! Very unpleasant. I'm all for smuggling a bag of microwave popcorn into the theater in a big purse! ;-) Mel and I got pretty good at that...har! Yesterday evening we pretty unusually got a large diet Coke and split a pretzel, b/c it was kinda around dinner and I hadn't eaten in a while. Of course, even splitting the drink I spent the last hour of the movie having to pee. Also not pleasant.
I'm with Tanya - you have to DO Something, or else be stuck in the same old rut. So, what did we Do Today? I got a small tea, rather than a 32 ounce Jumbo, and ate breakfast at home, and last night I played dancing videos with the kids on the Kinect. That counts for something, since otherwise I'd have had the 32 oz. Jumbo Sweet Tea and sat on my butt reading rather than dancing while some video goddess sang to me, "Hey Mami/You so SEXY!". But I couldn't match her dance moves, dang animated vixen, and my shoulder hurts today. Sad, sad, sad. Perhaps the vixen has a warmup?
OH - and on the movie popcorn - I love it. We don't go to the movies often - if we go once a quarter, we're doing something big, but I can't go to the movies without getting popcorn. I am so incensed, however, at the amounts of money they charge for the popcorn (which smells tantalizing but by the time you get it to your seat is nothing more than salty wads of construction paper, and where's the fun in that?) I have really been thinking of borrowing some of Mom's purses again, and sneaking in the popcorn! And I never get butter or that salt additive, although my husband gets both (this is why we always get separate popcorn. I just can't eat that crap.)
They make those small individual bags of popcorn now that would fit in regular purses better....
Post a Comment