A needed boost

I had a week or two of not feeling good, mentally. I wasn't taking my own advice, and was getting bummed that the scale wasn't budging. I took some measurements, and those weren't budging either. Except for my thigh - that was bigger! Seriously, seriously bummed.

And to just to make myself feel worse, I had a lot of self-talk regarding the "cheats" I'd been making. My mother-in-law came for a visit, we went out of town...my food choices weren't entirely my own. And even when they were, I made some "bad choices" - I really didn't need to eat 4 spoons of my son's ice cream. And I knew it.

Let the self-hate commence. I was getting ready for a good old-fashioned wallow, a self-induced depression that might "make it OK" to indulge a bit more. I feel like crap, chocolate will make me feel better! I've already had some ice cream; why not add fast food french fries to the mix?

(I really  need to write that post on self-talk I've been mulling over.)

But I took a step back and realized my problem was really one of perspective. I'd forgotten how far I'd come, and how much I'd changed. The best way I knew to demonstrate that to myself - and get some love from others, I admit - was to take photos and put together a before-and-after collage.

So here, in all my glory, is me in my underwear. I'd already lost ~7 pounds by the time that first set of photos was taken. I was too impatient to start this way of eating to wait for someone to take pictures of me! As you can see, I still have a ways to go before I look like the gals you see on the CrossFit videos. But, oh baby! Look how far I've come!

The scale is a fickle mistress

Many many years ago, I came across a media report of a study that a majority of people who were able to maintain weight loss were the ones who weighed themselves every day. I had never done that, but when I started this new lifestyle, I decided to try.

I kept track of my weights on an app on my iPod Touch. What an interesting graph they made! No straight line, this, but a jagged mountain-scape of gains and losses. I suppose I knew weight fluctuates hourly, and depends on so many things. Have you peed? Eaten? Spent time outside in the heat?

What surprised me the most were the odd results when I would "test" my scale. I came to not trust it very much at all. I mean, how could I trust a scale that tells me I gained a pound after going to the toilet?

This is just one of the ways that knowing or tracking ones weight is a useless endeavor.  I doubt any of us need a scale to know we are over or under weight. We can see it in the mirror, we can feel it in the fit of our clothes or the way our thighs rub together or how bony our hips or collarbones feel. If we must, we can track progress with weight loss or gain by using a tape measure. That is more accurate, but still doesn't tell the whole story.

I kind of knew this. I mean, I've been different sizes at the same weight before. 20 years ago, when I lived in Australia, there was even a terrific magazine article (which I have not been able to find) showing photos of 20+ "average" women - they were all 140 pounds and 5'4" tall. They all looked different. Some looked fat, some thin, some fit, some sadly out of shape. Yet, if we went solely by the scale, we would think they were all the same.

I was reminded of this in a spectacular way a week or so ago, when I came across this blog post by local trainer Jason Seib. Go on and check it out. Scroll down to that "before and after" photo and take a look at the weights listed. Now think if you are a person who might feel fat at that weight. Take a look at the right-hand photo. Think that woman is fat? Of course not. But the scale might tell her she is.

I can't promise to throw away my scale. But I can promise to see it, and love it, a little bit less.

The Unwritten Path

Wife, mother, friend, writer, knitter, gardener. These are all ways I describe myself, ways that other people might describe me. And they are true, of course they are. But there are so many variations of that truth, so many adjectives that can be used to modify and describe those nouns.

The one adjective that has fit most precisely in front of all of those nouns recently is unhappy. Wait, let me edit that - discontented.

For a while now, I've felt my unhappiness discontent physically, or to be more accurate I've been unhappy discontented with my physicality. I was sluggish, tired, stiff, achy, slow, and soft. I couldn't keep up with my son or my husband. Last summer, I was pregnant; it was a great excuse to not keep up with an active three-year-old boy, to laze on the couch while he played trains, to rest in the shade while he rode his bike. "Mommy can't." became my most often uttered phrase.

Then I had an unwanted but medically necessary c-section. I was "in recovery." I was sleep deprived. I was often hampered by the infant in my arms, or strapped to my chest. I loved when she fell asleep in my lap not just for the sheer joy of holding a sleeping baby, but because it meant I didn't have to do anything but sit and rock.

These were also great excuses to not turn any of my self-designated labels into verbs. I've described myself as a writer and editor for over a decade, but it has been at least three years since I've written or edited for any reason other than fun. (Yes, fun!) This is yet another year I've failed to mulch or weed my garden. Our household budget is a disaster. My stash of planned and unstarted knitting projects fills two Rubbermaid bins, which are now in the attic because they've languished so long.

But now my post-partum fog has lifted. The person I see is not the person I want to be. Wife, mother, friend, writer, knitter, gardener...those are hard and fast nouns that will always define me. But the adjectives I see now - lazy, fat, tired, slow, neglectful, angry, impatient - are ones I'd like to see left behind.

The path ahead is still unwritten, and it is up to me to choose the words.