diet + exercise = reward - food = ?
(I’ve always been bad at math.)
I realized that a lot of my motivation to lose weight and get in shape comes from anger.
Angry that I’ve lived 22 years like this. Angry that I never did anything to change before. Angry that I never got help or saught it out. Angry that it took this long to realize it’s not the end of the world if I can’t eat anything I want or nothing at all.
Before that was enough to keep me from doing anything to change it. Seems counterproductive but it was easier to sit in my self-loathing than do anything to change it.
Now I’ve worked out every single day since March 9th. Maybe that seems rather paltry, but to me that is huge. Walking the dogs is an even bigger accomplishment. Tonight it was dark and a little chilly (I refuse to say cold because that will jinx the nice weather we’ve been having—and yes, 45 degrees can be considered nice) and I couldn’t go to the trail. I was limited to the neighborhood and my desire to venture too far or too long was waning because of the potential stray dog factor. I grabbed my new water bottle with a wrist strap on it, put my keys on my Jaegermeister lanyard I got from my friend Amy, put my phone in the front pouch of my pullover and headed out the door with the dogs. My goal was to go for a short but intense walk. Not distance, but pace. So a walk that would’ve taken me 45 minutes last week took me 20 tonight. The dogs were almost panting. I was ready to fall over and scream for mercy, I could barely feel my ankles. My heart was pumping, lungs were burning, but I didn’t stop even when I told myself it was okay to slow down—no, it’s not okay, keep going.
I slowed down only when I got in front of my house again and the dogs looked at me like I was nuts. I needed to cool down so I went for a short, slow walk to the end of the block, turned onto 45th St and walked to the end of that until the stop sign and back again. By then I had recovered and I didn’t feel like I wanted to collapse; rather, I felt invigorated. I wanted to keep going but it was dark by then and I knew I had things to do back at the house.
Warmed up from the walk I decided to do some ab workous on Hulu. It’s pathetic what I can’t do—but instead of that making me want to quit it only makes me want to conquer this hurdle. Okay, so you can’t do three sets or even get through two, but you got through one. Tomorrow you’ll push for two. The day after that three. The day after that you’ll do a different workout and it’ll still hurt but by God you’ll do them!
And it would be unfair to expect this fat body of mine to do the workout I’m asking. I have to constantly remind myself that it’s okay…a week from now it’ll be so much easier. But you still have to get through today.
Eating every few hours on Medifast is difficult—harder than I thought it would be. But it’s training me to eat small, to give my metabolism a chance to burn it off. I don’t feel tired or like I’m not getting enough nutrients. I feel like I have the energy to workout that I never did before but at the end of the day, which comes four hours earlier than usual for me, my eyes are drifting shut and it’s all I can do to stay awake. Who knew eating healthy food and exercising would actually make me feel restful? It’s not exhaustion or fatigue that makes me fall into bed and sleep better than I have in a long time—it’s actually feeling like my body is ready for restorative sleep. I’ve almost never felt that way before.
Food can’t be a reward anymore. I have to stop thinking “If I work out for 45 minutes I can have that cookie.” Because it’s not about the damn cookie. Fuck the cookie. What did the cookie ever do for me? For five seconds I enjoy it. How is that a real reward? My reward should be something tangible. Like quiet time. Sitting down to read a book or just surf the internet. Take the dogs for a walk. Clean up my house. Slowly but surely (after all, it’s only been a few weeks!) I’m realizing that my mindset is all wrong. I can’t lose weight if food will be my reward. That’s assbackwards.
For now it’s one day at a time. That’s all that I can really do.
