For those interested in my progress, I’m finally shedding excess weight that I gained over a couple of weeks of inconsistent eating and exercise. I hope to be reporting new numbers soon!
If you’re wondering why my blog is late, today — it’s because I was out late last night, partying, and slept in this morning. How’s that for irresponsible? I’ve been maintaining for a while that I’ve been aging backward, so it only makes sense that I reach that party-girl stage at some point, right? 😉
Seriously, though… I was at a house concert. House concerts are marvelous things; traveling musicians will perform at a private home, and a small group of people will pay much-less-than-your-average-concert-ticket to hear them play, bringing their own food, drinks, and lawn chairs. It’s a really fun thing to do, and it’s just really catching on around here. It also gave me the opportunity to be responsible with my eating, although it can be a bit of a drag to drink my water when most everyone else is enjoying an adult beverage.
Not actual 70’s mannequins, but still not your average figure.
I mention all this because the group includes people I see roughly monthly. Some, I haven’t seen in several months, and one complimented me on my weight loss efforts. I thanked her — and that’s when things got weird.
I made awkward apologies for not currently being in loss mode.
Why the ever-lovin’ hell did I do that?! Why did I feel obligated to make amends for currently being up in weight? She wouldn’t have known the difference, and while I believe in being totally accountable, that doesn’t necessarily mean over-sharing details of my journey with people who simply gave me a compliment. Needless to say, I mentally kicked myself for that afterward, but it also means I have some mental work to do on that.
It bothers me to not be in losing mode. I have been mortified over the amount of weight I allowed myself to gain while out of town. But I also dedicated myself to getting the weight off and have worked hard in the interim to do exactly that. I’ve done a good job, even if I haven’t completely lost what I gained, yet. Obviously, there’s some part of my brain that thinks it’s not good enough if I feel the need to apologize for it.
This is something I still struggle with. I absolutely need and believe in accountability; knowing that people are following my weight loss is an incentive to keep me on the straight and narrow. But there also needs to be a balance — what I had was an emotional response, not a logical one, and while I know that I can’t entirely keep emotion out of what I do, emotion is also to blame for influencing me into beating myself up over things that don’t, in the long run, matter. Being emotional and unreasonable about weight loss is my number one reason for falling off diets.
I’m not in a race. I have no definite timeline that dictates I must be a certain weight on a certain date, even if my logical brain often tries to project when I’ll arrive at certain points. Summer is also my typical slow time for weight loss because we do a fair amount of camping and traveling, and I’m not always in full control of my food options. (And, honestly, I’m human and want the occasional break to kick back and relax.) Regardless of all of this, though, there’s some part of my brain that’s hardwired to believe that if I’m not moving forward, I’m sliding backward and deserve to be chastised for it.
Maybe it’s a throwback to when I was young and Walt (my father, an emotional abuser) pressured me to lose weight. He did it, even when I wasn’t much overweight. I recall, once, walking through a mall with my parents, and commenting on an outfit on a mannequin; he told me that if I could lose enough weight to look like the mannequin, he’d give me $100. (In the mid-70’s, that was a huge amount of money to offer a teenager!) In his eyes, I was fat and therefore not good enough. What possessed him to say such a thing, when I was just commenting on an outfit I liked? I was probably 16 or 17 at the time.
Imagine that. My brothers got paid for good grades. I had stellar grades but got no recognition at all for them. Instead, he offered to pay me if I could do the impossible: look like a mannequin. It was an absolutely ridiculous thing to say, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I actually attempted to do exactly that. You bet that I failed, but frankly, he was no small man, himself; his parents were hardly thin, either. I’m not of a slight build, and I’m short; I would have had to have been anemic to look like a mannequin in the 70’s. Is it any wonder I have built-in issues with not being considered good enough?
It’s easy to blame him for planting the seed, but as an adult, I own my responses and must make sure emotional responses don’t win.
At this point, I’m recognizing that guilt for what it is: an emotional response that needs to be dealt with so I can move on. I’m on the right track, and as long as I keep chugging on, I’ll get to my destination in my own good time.
Don’t worry. Every little thing is gonna be all right.