The super important part of this meme, in my opinion, is the “and I’m feeling good part.”
Yes, use the scale as a measure, but don’t let it mess with your head. I have let that silly scale (salty meal) derail my “feeling good” too many times to count, and I am not going to do it anymore. I am not going to throw the scale out the window, but I am going to be patient. I know that if I do exercise and eat healthy, smaller portions, I will lose weight eventually. As much as I would love to lose 24 pounds in 12 weeks, I would also be happy to not gain. And to lose even 10 pounds in the next 12 weeks (11 weeks now), would still be a huge win!
So, this week, I will not let the scale numbers derail me. They are just numbers.
“Self-love is not just about constantly giving yourself praise and telling yourself how awesome you are. It’s about loving the real you, the human you – the person who has feet of clay, who comes undone under criticism, who sometimes fails and disappoints others. It’s about making a commitment to yourself that you will stick by yourself – even if no one else does. That’s what I mean when I say you must love yourself as though your life depends on it, because quite simply, I know without a doubt that it does.”
— Anita Moorjani
This is it, no more excuse. I desire change and I am going to just do it. Move with purpose, choose the best foods for me that allow me to feel my best, versus foods that taste good but make me feel terrible later, (heart burn, sweaty at night while I try to sleep, cotton mouth, cravings for more in the morning, irregular in the bathroom). Sorry for the overshare on details, but this is the truth for me when I eat sugary processed foods, even those that are gluten free are still junk food using alternative grains (and all grains are now a problem for me, a fact which I have been ignoring). Ug, no more. I am starting a new 12 weeks soon, so here I go.
I have to apologize for calling him “Fat Thor,” that sounds like an insult, but I do not mean it to be. Simply, it is just a descriptor for the character played in Avengers: End Game.
After the events of Avengers: Infinity War, End Game picks up the story of Thor five years later. After all he has lost, (and of the many characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he has arguably lost the most, not only family and friends, but most of all his people, his whole planet, his whole purpose, and that whole thing where he should have gone for the head), he is depressed and self medicating with junk food, beer, video games, and well, he’s gotten fat.
And there is nothing wrong with that. No shame here, it just is. Life gets in the way of healthy choices if we let it, at times. We get fat, we get thin, we get somewhere in between.
But Thor’s friends need his help, despite his recent slide into the pit. And even though they accept him for who he is now, and they understand he is struggling, they also then challenge him to do better. Later in the movie, he goes back in time and has a brief exchange with his mother. She sees the state he is in, recognizes he is from the future which has not been kind to him, and she says:
“Everyone fails at who they’re supposed to be. The measure of a person, of a hero, is how well they succeed at being who they are.”
Thor even mentions this at the end of the film. He says its time to just be who he is.
Acceptance, yes, but also a challenge to try and do better.
At one point in the last 12 weeks, I was about three pounds down from where I started. Then the last three weeks have been really crappy for me, and I’ve put on a significant chuck of weight. And I hardly walked at all, just 31 kms in August, the least amount this whole year so far. I self medicated with sugar, junk food, binge watching series, and even a few pina coladas, (even though I rarely drink alcohol because it makes my stomach hurt), which brings me this morning to 10 pounds MORE than where I started 12 weeks ago. What the hell happened?? I was doing okay, I was staying basically the same weight, even though I wasn’t losing the weight I gained after we moved in the spring, (which was the first tough life event in a series of tough events I have faced this year, one of which I write about here). I had even increased the kilometers I was walking each month from 40, to 50, then to 60 kms in July. I blogged every week. What the heck just happened?
I woke up yesterday morning and I didn’t want to do anything, even though it was a warm sunny day and a holiday. I felt terrible, lamenting to myself that how I felt was the sum total of every bad decision I had made in my whole life, and it truly felt like my whole life was a lot of bad decisions. I hit the couch and for some reason I turned on Avengers: End Game. Then I soon realized, hey, I am fat Thor. And I need to forgive myself.
So, what Thor taught me yesterday was that I can turn things around right now, today. I can stop doing the wrong things and start, once again, to make better choices. If a superhero, an actual god, (fictious or not), can fall apart like Thor did, no wonder a mere mortal like me fell into the pit for a while. And although I have faced my own share of personal struggles in the last few months, I can challenge myself to do better, starting right now.
Even if this blog message is just for myself, I am glad to put it out there, and tell myself that I know I can do better. And even if it feels like a lot of bad choices have been made, it’s never too late to start making other choices.
I have struggled a lot with perfectionism. Even after I identified perfectionism as a pointless pursuit, because perfect does not exist, I still want to be “perfect.” I now accept I do not have to be perfect; I just have to be present. I will only be in trouble if I start to hide, once again, from the things that I need to be doing. This post today is me being present.
Last week sucked. Yesterday day sucked. Today = not as bad.
When I see another woman living her best life, I turn the judgment back onto myself. Why am I not living my best life? Why am I not confident? Why don’t I know how to express myself? Why do I feel stupid for posting anything? I hate my clothes. I hate myself.
Whoa. No wonder I am left with very little energy to lift myself up.
Something I realized last week is that I haven’t really set a goal other than the goal of not quitting. The goal of showing up each week. The goal of paying attention.
And those, in and of themselves, are still good goals.
But I also like the idea of a photo shoot as a goal. I just love getting great pictures. I did some photos in February, and it wouldn’t take much now to get back to that weight.
At least, some days I feel like “it wouldn’t take much” to get back there. Other days if feels like there is nothing left in me to get back there, and I will never get there.
So, I feel like this next 12 weeks will have been an excellent warm up. And I intend that the next 12 weeks after this will be even better. My life will have settled a bit after having moved in May, (which tilted me off course).
Moving forward, I will be primed to continue to focus on my health and trimming down in weight (getting back there) will be a bonus!
My fridge before my Father’s day get together June 15.
Setting unrealistic goals has been a problem for me in the past. For example, unrealistic short-term goals like I must lose 10 pounds in two weeks, or I must lose 20 pounds in a month. Or an unrealistic ultimate goal weight somewhere south of 20 on the BMI scale, (calculated with height in mind). I’m 5’6”. My number on the scale is going to be different than someone who is 5’10” or 5’2”, but even I know (now) a BMI of less than 20 is far too thin for me.
However, I believe in the importance of visualization, so I need to have a goal in mind for that.
I just went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and I had my hand around the package of cheddar cheese before a voice said, “Wait a minute, didn’t you just set goals?” I immediately put the cheese back. Kiera = 1, cheese = 0.
This morning, I visualized two goals, one short term, one long term. Competitive athletes do visualizations before competing because research shows it is incredibly powerful to live out an experience in the mind. In addition to visualizing myself in a good place with these goals having been met, I tried a new technique. Beside the good place I had visualized, I visualized my fears, separated by a wall with a door. I opened the door and walked through to that other side and visualized myself living through my worst-case scenario. Then I asked that version of myself, the one that had experienced the worst, if she had any advice for me. She told me to get out of there immediately, close the door, and don’t open it again.
That is powerful advice. I can choose the good side, close the door to the other, and no one is going to come along and push me back through it. Even though I cannot control when life throws me a curve ball, leaving that door closed is entirely within my control.
On the other side of the door, the good side, I visualized losing 10 pounds this summer, sometime in August, ending up at a weight just less than the Mother’s Day weight I’ve been obsessing about, 167.8 pounds. And then I visualized being 145.8 pounds by the end of the year, as that was what the scale said that morning in February 2017 when I boarded a plane for a week-long vacation in Hawaii, and I love those vacation pictures. This is how I’m going to kick start this journey in a significant way. Eat less, move more, sure, that is a big part of it. But really, I’m setting aside the fear that I’m going to end up on the other side of that door. That fear is based in my recent past failures. I’m looking forward instead, and I can see myself doing it, staying firmly on the good side of the door. I could see it so vividly, I put down the cheese.
And the good news is that momentum carried my through the weekend, and I am now 172.2 pounds.
Last Wednesday night found me ‘white knuckling’ it. It was the Sesame Snaps calling me, because they are gluten free. I’m a Celiac and being forced by an autoimmune disease to be gluten free has helped me lose weight at times. Instead of carving off my own piece of cake while I serve my family some, I cannot eat it because it’s not gluten free. Ice Cream was on sale last week at Safeway, and so I bought three cartons of it. Do I want to taste the new flavor, Blueberry Cheesecake? Yes, but I don’t, because it’s not gluten free. All those tastes, licks, and bites that used to derail my dieting efforts are just not an option since late in 2011 when I was diagnosed Celiac.
Despite not having much in the house to binge on, there is always something gluten free if I root hard enough in my cupboards. Lately, its been the Sesame Snaps. Costco (damn them) sells cartons with 36 four wafer packets that my husband likes in his lunch. I like the number 12, so 3 packets of four equals 12 which equals 540 calories. That is an awful lot of calories, and the horrible truth is, after 12 wafers, I’m still not satisfied.
Because it’s not really the food I need. I’m trying to fill something else. I know this. I’ve got my iPad out, I don’t want to look at Facebook anymore, I don’t feel like reading a book, I don’t feel like watching an episode of whatever. I think I want to eat something sweet, but what I really need to do is find something that fills me with joy. But how do I find that on a Wednesday evening knowing all that’s left is go to bed and wake up to another work day, just like every other work day? Wash, rinse, repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Many diet plans focus on the “what.” What to do: eat less, move more. Or only eat only these certain foods. Every successful diet book out these has pages and pages in the back of what to eat, what meals to plan with sample menus, what to cook with corresponding recipes. I think that is a great way to sell books. But it still does not tell me how I am going to do it. Some advice is to just make the decision to start the diet, January 1st, Monday morning, today, doesn’t matter. Just do it now. Then comes the psychology. If you really wanted to do it, you would have done it, what’s holding you back? Then comes the physiology. You’re addicted to sugar, your metabolism is damaged, your hormones are affecting your satiety signals. Those can absolutely be valid contributing factors, but none of them get me to the, “How do I get consistent enough to get this weight off, and keep it off, despite all the contributing factors?”
This Bio Joy diet is about finding the “How.” How do I surrender to all the conflicts (mental, emotional, physical, spiritual), and just get busy losing weight and keeping it off? How do I decide to surrender to whatever eating plan I choose, the one that gets me and then keeps me at the weight I desire to be at, the one which is probably the one I’ve used before that I know I can sustain, if only I could figure out how to stay on it consistently?
My Bio Joy diet is about finding the how. How do I surrender? How? Maybe by finding the Bio Joy around me daily and substituting it for the other things I’m in the habit of turning to, like seeking food to comfort my stresses. We all have stress, up and down, every day. But what about today? That’s what I’m still working on, today, staying consistent, and even if it’s not easy to find Bio Joy today, I’m never going to stop searching.
There is nothing wrong with doing a little reflecting on the past. We learn lessons from past mistakes and we can make better decision for the future. Unfortunately, although I long for my future, thinner self, I can easily get sucked into regretting anything and everything to do with my past behaviors and choices with respect to dieting.
Regret is a very unproductive place to be, I know this. But I started this diet three weeks ago, wanting to solve my issues with using excess food emotionally by replacing those behaviors instead with activities that bring me joy. Honestly, I hoped I’d be back in the 160’s by now, and getting close to the weight I was for my Mother’s Day picture. Instead, buckle your seat belts, this is going to be a bumpy ride. The result has been my typical up and down roller coaster journey on the scale, all on the up side this week.
And even though I know it’s not a good idea to go there, look backwards at Mother’s Day 7 weeks ago, I’m going to do it anyway. Mother’s Day I was 167.8 lbs. I acknowledged last week that I did too little in terms of getting this diet off the ground, and yet I continued to do too little this week also, using hip pain (although valid) as an excuse. There is a difference between a valid physical issue, like pain, and capitulating instead of finding a work around that still results in weight loss. This week, I gained back to where I started, plus some.
The worst part is regret; toxic, bitter, regret. There was popcorn again last night, and I regret it. There was a long day of work where I snacked all evening waiting for my husband to come home, and I regret it. There is a laundry list of bad decisions last week resulting in the regret of right here and now. Today I woke up with a well earned 177.2 pounds on the scale, nearly 10 pounds more than Mother’s Day, and the highest regained number I’ve seen in over 7 years.
What is it going to take to snap myself out of this backwards slide up the scale? And it is backwards, it’s all turned around. Going up the scale is a backslide, because I’m a proven dieter. I have lost weight successfully many time, only to gain it back. I do not know what it would feel like to be starting a diet for the very first time, with hope for the future in my heart, without the jaded wreckage of all my past regains tainting my optimistic outlook.
This blog is telling my new diet story, but I suppose I am going to be spending some time chronically my past diet stories. I was standing on a scale at Weight Watchers at the age of 14. My entire life feels like past diet stories, plus the current one I am always on. All the special events of my life (graduations, marriage, vacations) are tagged in my mind with a weight. Including Mother’s Day, as above.
Today is July 1, a holiday in Canada, and I am not going to spend it eating. Instead, it’s a beautiful sunny day, and we have a ride to a campsite in our Jeep to visit the kids and grandson who have been camping all weekend.
The Bio Joy Diet 