The honeymoon is officially over. That wonderful period right in the beginning of a lifestyle change, when you're full of motivation and nothing can stop you... it's done, for me.
It lasted for more than a month, and in that time I lost a full third of the weight I wanted to lose. For that, I'm grateful. But I've still got more than half of my work to do, and I'm not even sure that when I get to my original goal weight of 145, I'll be satisfied. I might want to go lower.
I still want to exercise a lot. Since I started lifting, I've seen fantastic results with it, and the results are enough to keep driving me to the gym. I can do things now that I never even thought possible, and I haven't been at this that long. But the calorie counting is getting old. I'm sick of trying to guess the caloric cost of every meal I eat. I prepare a lot of my own meals, and it's a pain to figure out how much of each ingredient is in each serving, and how much a serving even is. I've been quite diligent about making guesses and tracking everything I eat, and according to my (pretty much made up) numbers, I'm still running a deficit most days, but I don't feel thin anymore.
I'm also in a weird state where I'm sick of being hungry, but I hate feeling full. I feel awful if I'm full. Not bloated, but disgusting. Like I've done something wrong. My body isn't used to it. I suppose I should be thankful for that, but right now I can't hit a sweet spot where I enjoy both the meal and the feeling after the meal. I don't take pleasure in my food the same way I used to, and that makes me angry. Not all of my eating habits were stellar, but I did legitimately love and enjoy many of my meals, and I used to get a wonderful feeling of satisfaction after some of the best dinners I treated myself to. I'm not sure that will happen anymore.
There are some other things going on in my life right now and I won't go into them but they're not helping. They're making things hard and causing me stress and when I'm stressed my diet and exercise are usually the first casualties. I haven't given up yet, but the drive to stick with these changes is ebbing.
I believe in focusing on the positives. I have completely retrained my body in terms of its relationship to food. I am adamant about small portions now. I'll get a third of the way through a restaurant meal and be entirely uninterested in finishing it, even if that first third was mind-blowingly good. I am still exercising. I am still losing weight. Even though I'm hitting a challenge in terms of motivation, I'm still powering through. For all this, I'm proud of myself. It gives me hope that some day I won't have to run numbers in my head every time I sit down to a meal. I won't have to spend my day feeling hungry. I know what a correct portion size is now, and nine times out of ten, that single portion is enough.
It's hard though, and it's really hard to do this alone. In real life, there's no one around who is doing something similar. There's no one to actually discuss all of these issues with. I have to struggle through them and figure them out by myself, and headstrong though I may be, that's not my favorite option. I'd give a lot to be able to lean on someone for support right now.
Monday, April 26, 2010
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I can relate to this - it's so incredibly hard to deal with all of this.. and honestly, calorie counting has been one of the worst things I think I've done =/ It gets to be an obsession.. don't let it take over!!
ReplyDeleteI've dealt with a lot of body image issues for a while, and have fought through most of it alone. I tend to avoid talking about these things with my friends because by talking about it, it seems to give it some sort of reality, and I certainly don't want to draw attention to my appearance, so I've avoided it.
I think that people struggle with these sorts of things at different levels and in different ways, and that it can fluctuate.. and even though everyone has different experiences with it, there's different aspects at which people can connect.
There's so much pressure from society to look certain ways, and it suucks.. there's always an ideal that can't really ever seem to be reached, and it's so hard to deal with that. It's hard when you work your butt off, at a level that you KNOW is so much harder than what others are doing, but you're still not quite where you want to be. It can seem unfair that some people seem to achieve results effortlessly.
Anyway, I think one thing to remember is that you've stayed focused and healthy and motivated, and that you're making awesome progress. I think the problem sometimes is that when we compare ourselves to an ideal, we don't ever seem to meet that... we need to start thinking about the reality instead. What have you accomplished that others have NOT been able to do? Focus on being HEALTHY and feeling good.. and the ride might seem to get a little bit easier.
Best of luck to you in your journey - it can be a tough one but you are NOT going through it alone! :)