In the peak month of diet resolution, I have thought more than acted on weight loss.
I'm a little past trusting my own January-hype of recent years. I tell myself at least if I haven't lost neither have I gained, but this too is small comfort.
We all know what it takes to lose weight. The formula is simple: eat less, move more. Keep eating less, move even more--the feeling of "slim" will taste better than the best chocolate cake you've ever had.
I know this to be true. I have a favorite chocolate cake recipe, and the sense of lightness I've enjoyed after shedding a few pounds is the far sweeter experience.
This losing weight thing was never a problem for me. Eat the cake, stay busy, maintain near-to-ideal weight. Even after the babies, I could eat the cake and still wear flattering clothes.
I could blame it on menopause, and I think I will. Too, I do not own the mindset that perpetually thin people seem to successfully take possession of, whatever the years bring.
My husband is a perfect example of this mindblowing mindset. The other morning, we were watching a typical January morning news show offering weight-loss advice. The segment discussed temptation-resistance strategies, meals assessed to the calorie, and promoted the latest and "best" exercise equipment.
All this prompted Ramon to speak aloud an observation: "I think people who say they can't lose weight really don't want to. People don't need particular diets or expensive equipment. If they really want to lose weight, they will just get it done, don't you think?"
I looked around the room. Was he talking to ME?! In the manner of a peace-seeker, I said quietly but firmly, "Don't even go there."
He got it, and didn't go there.
The thing is, at every meal he eats fully twice the amount of food I do. He doesn't put butter on his pancakes or cream in his coffee, but he'll enjoy a second WHOLE dessert to my one half of one piece, everytime. He'll drink three glasses of a sweet beverage in one day when the most I take in is water. (Oh, and the cream in my coffee.)
Yes, he does physically exerting work almost every single day, and if he doesn't think he's expended enough energy he'll go into the garage and kickbox for an hour. Even babysitting the grandkids is a whirlwind of exercise, flying them about in laundry baskets or racing them down our lengthy driveway.
I work hard too, but it's usually with "ordinary" housework and alot of pencil-pushing. I'll purposely take the stairs a few more times than necessary, but it never takes much before I feel that futile effort is cutting into my valuable time.
One would think his sins would offset mine, but it doesn't work that way. He's fit and lean and wears a smaller size in jeans than he did when we got married in 1973. I stopped buying clothes over a year ago. I have plenty of good things to wear, I just have to fit into them again.
Which reminds me of other advice I read recently: a magazine article suggests if I 've been hanging onto clothes that I haven't worn in over a year, it's time to donate.
I'm all for donating unused items, but really? These are clothes that if I lost a few pounds and could fit into again, I would purchase once more at full price.
That kind of waste doesn't help another kind of "waist," my waistline. If I give over clothes I like because I don't fit into them anymore, am I really then going to lose the few pounds that would let me wear favorite clothes I no longer own?
Common sense, where are you? This January I seek you more than ever. I've been there and done that with exercise equipment, slimming "meal" drinks, long walks in the woods with a salad and broiled chicken afterward. That is all good and well, but not sustainable for me.
My husband doesn't even think of the day he can't do all that he does to stay slim. He just keeps doing it, thinking that by this he will ALWAYS be able to do it. Good, good, GOOD for him, and I hope he's right.
As for me, I can't imagine that a voraciousness for exercise will yet overtake my life. As well, I know that sporadic bursts of mindset do me small good anyway.
Just as I hoped, writing this has spurred me to a new and I hope sustainable mindset of my own. I will start with the proverbial eating less and moving more, but in increments that are not highly noticeable to anyone but myself. Oh geez--I just "put it out there," so I guess I've made it noticeable, huh?
I'll keep you posted--in hardly noticeable increments.
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