Another month bites the dust

It seems I have become a once a month blogger. Unacceptable, as Super Nanny might say. I think about writing here all the time, but sadly, in blogging, as in eating well and exercising, it is actually NOT the thought that counts.

As for that eating well and exercising, I have been not exactly diligent but not exactly slack-assed. I am putting some form of chocolate in my mouth pretty regularly, but I also exercised four out of five days last week while I was away in a hotel room, and that’s pretty incredible for me. I also ate French fries in the middle of the night after going out with Taco to see some live music. At the bar, however, I had soda water instead of booze. So I’m in a kind of holding pattern, I guess.

The weight is not what you would call pouring off me. It is not doing much of anything, besides sitting there in its weighty way. I would very much like to change this state of affairs. I am having a hard time, for a variety of reasons, I guess, or maybe just one reason that seems to have lots of different sides (though I must admit it seems like a pretty shitty reason, and may more properly be classified as an excuse).

In short, I am feeling an uncharacteristic degree of self-loathing where my body is concerned. This is so unlike me I find myself quite startled by it. In some ways, it feels completely real: I feel like for the first time in my life, I can actually see my body as it is. And that, my friends, is not a pretty sight. I see my thighs, and they look massive to me. I catch sight of myself in the mirror or reflected in a shop window, and instead of feeling proud of what I see, I feel sad. I feel like I can see what other people see when they look at me and it is entirely dejecting. I’m not sure where this came from, and why it has come so quickly and so insistently. Worse yet, I’m not sure why it seems to bring with it an inertia where positive change is concerned.

Taco think it’s a lack of sticktoitiveness, and he may well be right. I don’t know what flipped that switch for me in the first place last fall, but I do recall getting high every day on revelations about personal choice, how every morsel I put in my mouth, every sip of water, every time I moved my body was a choice. The realization that I could make those choices all day every day and see some positive result from them was heady. That much I recall. I sure would like to feel that headiness again.

I am not sure whether this feeling of the scales falling from my eyes, so to speak, allowing me to see myself as I probably am (I’m skeptical enough about reality as a concept to leave room in the equation for the possibility that nothing is as I think it is, let alone as anyone else thinks it is) is a positive development or a negative one. I mean, I suppose if I were finding the feeling motivating, it would be positive. I am not sure I’m finding it de-motivating, but so far, it’s not making me eat less or move more. It’s just making me eat ok and move a bit, but with a base coat of self-loathing. It’s certainly uncomfortable. I’m used to having if anything a little too much self-esteem, so this feeling is new and deeply awkward.

Thing is, I know what I have to do. Why I’m not doing it is the more pertinent question. I guess I’ll have lots of time to figure that out while I walk the treadmill, right?

Right.