Body image, maintaining and other confusing ideas...... sort of

I was reviewing my Feedly (blog reader thingie) today and came across a post by gokaleo that caught my eye.  I did a little clicking and came to this post linked here.


I love that the title is Bullying, Body-shaming, and the Unbearable Powerlessness of Douchbaggery.  I have to state first that at initial perusal, I do not allow myself to get bullied.  I am old enough to be over that crap.  I mean seriously, try to bully me and I will tell you to go F yourself.  And I won't say F either.  I fortunately have by now come to terms with the fact that I am what I am and if you don't like it, tough taffy, Tootsie.  Get over yourself.  And that is where my teacher self confidence REALLY is helpful!  hehehe.

However, a part of the bullying that she refers to in this post is the subtle cultural images that we are all exposed to during our life.  The bullying that takes place is the placement of images and ideas in the media that only the thin and young are worthy of viewing.  That older or out of the narrow range of popular culture "norms"people are not good enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, buff enough, tough enough - just not enough. This needs to stop!  It is screwing with our minds.  I hear it all the time in my teenagers, friends and co-workers. I like to try and make them think about what they have said.  Challenging a "norm" that shouldn't be there at all.

I occasionally get sucked into this whole thing- my body that had been overweight (in an unhealthy way) it's whole life does not conform to the thin waisted, perky butted, skinny legged ideal that is portrayed everywhere.  I have none of those things - in my mind..... It makes me crazy when I realize that it has affected me so deeply.  I was irritated when a dear friend of mine called me a skinny minny yesterday.  I don't feel skinny right now, as I have about 10 lb around my middle that wasn't there at the beginning of the summer. So, I am thinking that just because I am so much smaller than I used to be she is just seeing that and not as I actually am.........................................


RECORD SCRATCH

OK, seriously.  So many things here- I won't go into it, I think you get the drift.  I have lost a lot,  remain in the healthy/normal weight area, I have worked out enough that I am strong and pretty fit (always the qualifiers, I know), so here I learned a mini lesson.

I am seeing some unwanted ideas behind my dissatisfaction with myself right now.  I do not look like the thin young person that might be at the gym next to me.  I might not lift as heavy as the middle age person across the gym.  I do not do the same workouts as my fitness friends elsewhere in the US.  So therefore, I am not doing something well enough.  a **ding ding** moment.  We can pay all the lipservice we want to be stating that we should not compare ourselves to others, but yet, it happens all the time.  Whether it is the slight panic of not being good enough or the slight sense of self satisfaction that we are doing better than someone else.  CRITICAL THINKING is needed here.

So, if I have gained some weight- a couple things:

Did I get too thin for my body to hang onto that weight? 
 Hmmm, maybe a little.

Am I eating poorly or something?  
Well, I know that I have a few downfalls that I can over indulge in that probably made my intake/output be skewed.  I am going to address the excess of certain things in my diet by cutting them back, but not eliminating things that I truly enjoy.

Is my health being negatively affected?
Um no.  I can still bench 150 on a sore chest and I walked 6.8 miles yesterday and felt great.  Only stiff knees from my session with deadlifts and squats.  I can live with that.

Maintenance is even harder if you allow yourself to be side tracked.  You revert to old eating habits to cope with your feelings of inadequacy.  You self soothe with food when you are stressed out by life and old issues raise their ugly heads.  You sort of have to resolve these things before you can be at peace with yourself. And so I have been thinking about things that affect me and am trying to discover what other little bits of pain are hiding in my brain.  As long as I don't regain that weight- the knee hurting, back wrenching, heart wrecking weight I used to have, I will be a success in my mind.  I will!

Lesson learned here- watch out for these little reactions that have no real basis in reality!!!  Reality is not what the media portrays.  Reality lives in each of us.  Thinking that we are never thin enough, or young enough, or our faces unlined enough or back buff enough is not especially helpful.  Well, the buff back is never enough!  :)  I will strive to become the strongest, fittest, HEALTHIEST, vegetarian Badass that I can be (thank you Nia Shanks)  for my health and for my own strength and quality of life-- but not because the people online or in magazines or on TV tell me to be!  We need to all be healthy and strong- not thin and young.  BIG DIFFERENCE THERE!!!!!

And only then will we all find our joy that is inside us!

Maintenance- it's easier when you relax! HA!!

Relax!  If you know me AT ALL, you know that recently, it is really hard for me to do!  Relax is something I used to do well, but now, not so well.  But I'll return to that thought in a moment.....

So, I am sort of surprised to find that I think a lot less about eating now.  I just laughed at myself, because I have been in "maintenance" a whole 7 days and have arrived at the conclusion that I need to fight my natural eating tendencies for the rest of my life about 3 days ago, and am making these lofty declarations already!  I hate being so self aware....  lol.  Anywho,  I am somewhat amused with myself for needing to have 3 chapters already in my maintenance thread!  But like I said, relaxing about things is not my strong suit these days.  Again, hang on  for that.

Oh yes, back to eating..... so once I decided that there was not magic that happens when you fall below a randomly chosen number on a scale - that will wildly alter from one moment to the next, let alone one day to the next - I have found that it has been a lot easier to just eat something.  I eat similarly to what I was  before, I just have added a little more to each section of the day.  Not a lot, just a little.  And I am also letting myself have one small yummy thing, whether it is a cookie or a beer or 3 glasses of wine...  it is all good!  And it makes me very happy, especially the wine!  :)  I continue to workout exactly like before- lots of weight lifting, lots of cardio, a ballet class and it is just what I need.  People think I am going to stop exercising because I have hit my goal, which is NOT true at all.  I need it- it is a healthy addiction that I have!  And I think it is going to be the key to keeping my weight where I want it!

I have had a number of interesting occurrences the last few days:
* I have found that my jeans are all too loose now, except for one pair, and I am going to have to get to a nice Goodwill or something soon to replace those puppies.
*I found the sketchbook that I had my measurements from 2 years ago written in and I am ASTONISHED to say that in my hips alone I have gone down 12 inches!!!!!  SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!!  Yikes.
*When the MA and I went out for dinner on Friday night, we sat next to 2 people (at the bar, where I found that the white wine was so good that I ended up with 3!) I hadn't seen much of in a while.  In fact, I haven't seen Charlie in years, and Bertie forever either.  Charlie didn't recognize me, and Bertie and I had already discussed a similar conversation we had at parent-teacher conferences.  It seems so weird, these are people I have known over 20 years, and I feel **the same**.  I guess that is the part that makes it all surreal.  It happens now and again, but it never fails to surprise me.
*I find that I don't really enjoy being called stick woman AT ALL.  GRRRR
* and a DING DING moment, I found a sun dress that someone had given me last February or March, that I NEVER thought it was going to fit- ever- and it does!!!!  Now, of course, I have discovered that I don't really like the dress all that much, it isn't exactly the best cut for me..... however, it is a strapless thing and I was really happy it looked decent!  YES!!! Arms raised and fist pumps occurred!

There is a whole nuther post about the rest of the things I found while cleaning, but it doesn't fit into this particular session!

Anyway, about the relaxing....  I am not good at it anymore.  Maybe it is my metabolism, maybe it is my real personality, maybe it is just being a somewhat different person who still feels the same inside, but relaxing isn't part of my makeup now.  This is somewhat hard for me, as I don't like to be a "failure" at things.  It bugs me. If I am doing "nothing" I am ACTUALLY thinking about any and all of these things in the course of a moment- photography, dinner, walking, weightlifting, drawing, lunch, breakfast.....facebook, texting, songs that are in my head and won't go away.....  you name it, that is what is happening and I find myself up and messing around with something.  I am not sure if it is a good thing or not.  Excellent example: this morning, after a night of fitful rest, I could have stayed in bed past 5.  But it didn't happen- why not??  I usually get up at 4, so I woke up, then I layed there and thought about what I am going to do today....what I want to accomplish, the gifts I need to wrap, the cards that are still unwritten, the fact that I am out of printer ink for the letter I want to write to put in the cards, other miscellaneous things and people, plus what time am I going to the gym...... pow..... I am wide awake and just get up out of surrender.  And then I find myself writing another maintenance blogpost.... and it will give me some peace and just a little bit of joy....  My brain is buzzing and I need to keep it thinking and dreaming and creating in one way or another for it to be content.  And isn't content really what we want to be?

Content, not complacent.  Happy, not passive.  Determined, but not close minded.  Maintain, not obsess.  Joy giver, not joy stealer!

Ah, I get it.... Maintenance chapter two

 Ahhhhhh, yes.  I see now.

I have had a really hard time the last couple days.  I have been hungry, I have been expecting to feel different, I was thinking I could relax.  I was wrong to expect that any of these things would change.

I get it now- I will be eating a little more, but it will continue to be a struggle every day.  Every day is a battle with myself.  A battle to stay in control, a battle to make the right, healthy choices.

OF COURSE, I have had a jillion people TELLING me this, but until I went through some things yesterday, I had no real comprehension.  I have to keep doing what I have been doing.  I have to continue to exercise like a fiend, I have to keep my tendency to eat mindlessly under control, I have to drink a lot of water. Of course this sounds totally obvious now, but for the last couple days it was not clear.

 I was caught by surprise by a plate of coconut candy- 

My focus had been temporarily distracted by this attainment of my goal weight. I felt like I should somehow magically be different, that I should feel or look or think different.  I must be a differentdebi since I no longer needed to lose weight, right?  But how different could I be from Friday to Saturday?  How different could I be when one day I weighed 145.2 and the next I was 144.6?  How is that even possible?  Confuseddebi imagined that suddenly she could just go on with life and magically have the instincts to eat like a "NORMAL" person!  So she didn't really think that she should be having some wild swings from being starving to full to hungry in the course of an hour.

I have made an interesting analogy in my mind.  This attainment of goal, while exciting and cool, is a little bit like Christmas..... it was a big letdown after the excitement died down.  Not that I am wanting the hurrahs from people or feel the incredible joy or break into happy tears every day, but it definitely was a "now what" feeling.  Similar to Christmas, where you often have these little scenarios of what things will be like in your mind, those little Hallmark images of how you imagine the day should go and how you should feel and how perfect every thing will seem, my goal weight attainment should have some lasting glow.  But like Christmas, where the horse needs to be fed, the dishes need to be washed and at some point you just get tired of the whole thing and you want to take a nap or tell the entire family that they should really go outside or something,  reality has reared its head. And you have the urge to find the bag of chocolate that you think could be left in the cupboard, or the box of Triscuits that are up on the top shelf.  Aren't those feelings supposed to be gone and I should CERTAINLY have a more "normal" relationship with food by now......??!!!!  I should be able to avoid all of this angst!

So after a few days of uncertainty in what to eat or how I "should" feel (I surely am using a lot of "Quotation marks" today!!) I had a forbidden moment with a plate of coconut candy in the teachers lounge.  I was innocently checking my mail in the morning  Wednesday (there is no innocent at this time of the year, though, there is always a chance that there is a plate of something in that lounge) and there it was--- with a little glow from above shining down on the little glass plate and some angels singing in the background.  The most perfect candy in the world: like a little homemade Mounds bar- adorable little white discs of coconut deliciousness with a sweet little dark chocolate "kiss" in the middle of it.  So pretty and so perfect.

 And before I knew it I had eaten 2.

This was a moment in time that transcended the entire joy and torture cycle that I had been experiencing.  I realized at that moment that there was a problem with my thought process, that the feeling of confusion I was having was being straightened out, being resolved and I wasn't real thrilled with the conclusion that I was being faced with.  I was no different that I had been last Friday.  I sort of tortured myself, and possibly a friend or two, with this little unfortunate coconut escapade for quite a while.  But my mind was processing the event and after a wise comment or two from afore mentioned people, I had an aha moment while driving to ballet class.  I have to keep doing what I have been doing.

Somehow this seems unfair, but it is logical.  If you spend your entire life trying to be thinner, and you finally get to somewhat thinner, what ever makes you think that you will suddenly have to stop trying?  Why would you have a different metabolism, or no longer have all that history with food marring your eating habits or all those latent fat cells hanging around waiting to be refed?  You don't.  So, carry on, woman, you have more work to do.  EVERY DAY.  It will be a BATTLE every  day.

So now I know, that I have to be on guard against plates of candy, and cookies and bags of chips.  I have to watch out for unguarded moments and well meaning friends.  I always have to be vigilant about logging my food (I figured out that probably those 2 coconut candies were probably between 150 and 200 calories for both) and mostly plan to be prepared for those moments of the unexpected.  I can't really relax, one pound can become 5 or 10 and that just cannot happen.  But the one unexpected thing I do need to do is not be so hard on myself if I consciously decide that a treat is ok to have.  And I am amazingly hard on myself.....

I need a new goal.  I am not sure what that is going to be.  If it is a fitness goal, or an exercise goal or a body fat goal......  I just don't know yet.  But I will have one soon, because I do well when I am aiming for something specific.  For now, for today, I am going to get out my food for the day and plan to succeed.  I will attempt to ignore my hunger pangs, will spread out my good, healthy food through the morning like I have been, to stay really active and drink a ton of water.  I will be finding joy where I can and give my students the love, understanding and information that they expect from me.  I'll continue doing what I do best and keep attempting to do what I want to succeed at the most. Then I will go to the gym and take all my frustrations for the day and throw them on the floor underneath one of the stacks of weights, along with those of 10 or 15 other great people who are doing the same thing.

I know that there really is no differentdebi, that the confuseddebi was just a few moments in time and that the same old me is here: just like last week and just like next week. And I think that is ok.

By the end of the day, I will find a little zen time, connect with a few of my friends, finish logging my food and exercise, feel some success in my day and relive the joy that I found. And that is no different than last Friday.

Until next time, find your joy, be a joy giver and do the best you can...... that is all we can ever hope for.

Maintenance- phase 1: transition

Yeah, so I feel the need to post my ramblings here about my sort of schizophrenic journey as I change the way I have treated food for my entire life.  I do NOT want to drive my friends insane, so you all have the choice to not read this if you don't want to!  Lol.

Saturday and Sunday were difficult days for me, in that I went through this HUGE array of emotions and moments.  You know, sometimes I feel like I am watching myself go through these things - I am always amazed at what my brain will put me through.  I always am aware of myself reacting, over-reacting, enjoying, suffering, agonizing and such, and it makes me wonder if I would be better off with mood altering drugs!  HAHAHA........ as if I need to alter my mood any more than it already does from moment to moment.

Anyway, without going into the details, it was hard to begin to change my thought process to maintain my weight.  My whole life I have been trying NOT to maintain this weight.  In fact a major stress is that when I used to get anywhere NEAR where I wanted to be, I would gain again.  I never EVER had success keeping weight off, and the thing was that I seemed unable to stop myself from gaining. I felt powerless to stop the reversal of my work.  I came to this conclusion while thinking about how I had lost quite a bit of weight about 7 years ago, on a system that was offered through our local clinic.  It was on the right track of what I needed.  You went to a weekly meeting, you called the leader once during the week to tell them how many minutes of activity you had and how many fruits and vegs you consumed during the week to that point.  It was the accountability that I needed.  But I am a person who needs variety and needs adjustment as time goes on.  So the same system that served me well at first was static and did not really meet my personality needs after the first 5 or 6 months.  And the support system was not there everyday........ and you know sometimes you need more support than just on Monday afternoon at 4:30.  Thank HEAVEN for my iPhone and Loseit.com!!

So that is one thing I am thinking about as I enter this new phase.  I woke up today feeling much more calm and confident, which is a good.  I had a rocking great workout at the gym, plus a fun time dancing in the dark.  And what is really nice is that I am not starving this morning.  Plus I dropped another half pound without intending to at all!!  Huh.

I am sure I will torture myself further today, but at least I am starting off feeling confident in my ability to maintain today.  And we all know that everyday is different, every day is a new opportunity, every day brings it's own challenges and disappointments and success.

And every day we can find a little joy.