Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the term "hacks"? Really, it drives me nuts. Like so many things, people have taken a word, a very simple word, and turned it into something that means nothing like what the word originally meant.
Thoughts on different ways to do things are not "hacks". They could be tips, or suggestions, or ideas. They may even be procedures or directions!
The thing is, I don't understand why anyone would want some brilliant idea that they came up with called a "hack" since the vast majority of the definitions of the word carry negative connotations. I would rather that if I devise a new way of accomplishing some goal, people refer to it in a complimentary way instead of a derogatory one.
Then there ate the oh-so-annoying clickbait articles that beat you over the head with the word. "10 AMAZING KITCHEN HACKS THAT WILL SAVE OODLES OF TIME!" or "5 UNBELIEVABLE DO IT YOURSELF HACKS!" Most of the so-called "hacks" in these articles are things that have been around for a long, long time. Sure, some are handy tips, but a lot are really just kind of dumb.
No one really takes anything seriously that has the word "hack" in the title. They just don't. So if you really want to get your ideas across, then just don't go there. Just don't.
There you go...my random rant of the night. Guess it kind of hacks me off. But now I've gotten it off my chest and can get back to important things like scrolling through Facebook or playing SW:TOR.
Friday, March 27, 2015
Friday, January 23, 2015
Light vs. Dark
On my Facebook feed tonight I see news reports about politicians filing bills to allow parents to obtain conversion therapy for their homosexual children under the age of 18, politicians saying that they don't believe in science because "God can overcome those so-called facts in the blink of an eye", fundamentalist Christians being suspected of stealing the statue of a Celtic God in Ireland, the continuing widening of the chasm between "left" and "right" and the politicians who are so caught up in "winning" that they have forgotten that they are there to make the lives of our citizens better, and personal stories of things like a doctor misdiagnosing someone with blood clots in their lungs as just "needing to lose weight" and almost killing them.
It is really hard at times like this to remain optimistic about humanity. But I try. I make myself remember the many people who contributed to help me start my business on the ever-widening path it is currently traveling. I make myself remember a group of people sitting in a hospital waiting room, patiently waiting turns to go in and sit by the bed of a sick friend. I make myself remember people donating hundreds of dollars to charity on the pretext of seeing someone fall backwards into a huge mud puddle. I think about hearing that SAPA has collected a couple of hundred dollars in just a few minutes to help one of their own who blew a tire on the way home from faire and didn't have the money for a replacement. I think of all of the rescued animals who are now pets in the homes of so many people on my friends list and how those animals will be warm and dry and fed and loved.
It is a finely balanced tipping point, the point between optimism and pessimism. I just have to believe that more people are like the good ones that I have the honor of knowing, than are like the ones we read about in the news. The good ones just don't get as much publicity. I HAVE to believe that, otherwise ... as Dr. Horrible says... "Any dolt with half a brain
Can see that humankind has gone insane. To the point where I don't know if I'll upset the status quo if I throw poison in the water main." That isn't the place I want to be.
Be good, people. Be good to each other, be good to strangers, be good to animals. Just be good. Let that goodness spread out from you and warm the world around you. The more good there is shining in the world, the less chance that darkness will overcome.
It is really hard at times like this to remain optimistic about humanity. But I try. I make myself remember the many people who contributed to help me start my business on the ever-widening path it is currently traveling. I make myself remember a group of people sitting in a hospital waiting room, patiently waiting turns to go in and sit by the bed of a sick friend. I make myself remember people donating hundreds of dollars to charity on the pretext of seeing someone fall backwards into a huge mud puddle. I think about hearing that SAPA has collected a couple of hundred dollars in just a few minutes to help one of their own who blew a tire on the way home from faire and didn't have the money for a replacement. I think of all of the rescued animals who are now pets in the homes of so many people on my friends list and how those animals will be warm and dry and fed and loved.
It is a finely balanced tipping point, the point between optimism and pessimism. I just have to believe that more people are like the good ones that I have the honor of knowing, than are like the ones we read about in the news. The good ones just don't get as much publicity. I HAVE to believe that, otherwise ... as Dr. Horrible says... "Any dolt with half a brain
Can see that humankind has gone insane. To the point where I don't know if I'll upset the status quo if I throw poison in the water main." That isn't the place I want to be.
Be good, people. Be good to each other, be good to strangers, be good to animals. Just be good. Let that goodness spread out from you and warm the world around you. The more good there is shining in the world, the less chance that darkness will overcome.
Friday, September 26, 2014
My life is not a series of boxes
Recently I had a revelation. I was looking over my blogs ("Confessions of a Fat Superhero" and "My Zig-Zag Journey") and realized that having my life compartmentalized was just not working out for me any more.
At one time it made sense for me to put all of my Health at Every Size and Size Acceptance posts in one place, and my general life posts in another. They were different aspects of me, and I didn't really want people who read my HAES blog to necessarily have access to the rest of my world. I had my life broken down into a series of boxes, each one separate and distinct from the others, with only a hint of commonality in the form of the walls between each compartment.
But things change over time, and people change along with everything else. More and more often I found myself considering combining the two blogs into one. You see, I've become more of a unified person in the last couple of years. I'm spending more time doing things that matter to me, and less time worrying about being one of The Cool Kids. As I've grown, I've also grown happier with myself. This has led to being more confident with myself as well.
Now, here we are. I've taken the big step and imported all of my Zig-Zag Journey posts into this blog. I have deleted the other one, and where there were two, there is now only one.
So, hello, World...welcome to my life. ALL of my life. I hope that we can continue to grow together and maybe become a little stronger at the same time.
At one time it made sense for me to put all of my Health at Every Size and Size Acceptance posts in one place, and my general life posts in another. They were different aspects of me, and I didn't really want people who read my HAES blog to necessarily have access to the rest of my world. I had my life broken down into a series of boxes, each one separate and distinct from the others, with only a hint of commonality in the form of the walls between each compartment.
But things change over time, and people change along with everything else. More and more often I found myself considering combining the two blogs into one. You see, I've become more of a unified person in the last couple of years. I'm spending more time doing things that matter to me, and less time worrying about being one of The Cool Kids. As I've grown, I've also grown happier with myself. This has led to being more confident with myself as well.
Now, here we are. I've taken the big step and imported all of my Zig-Zag Journey posts into this blog. I have deleted the other one, and where there were two, there is now only one.
So, hello, World...welcome to my life. ALL of my life. I hope that we can continue to grow together and maybe become a little stronger at the same time.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Sometimes I get tired...
I got home from work this afternoon and settled into my chair to putter on Facebook for a bit before diving into the massive To Do List waiting for me. I don't normally work Tuesdays, but we're at peak volume for the month and so I volunteered to work extra hours. It was an all right morning, though I didn't sleep well last night between a restless husband and three restless cats taking turns waking me up, but I while there was a nearly overwhelming urge to just turn off the alarm and roll over, I made it in on time and was pretty productive.
I ran a couple of errands on the way home, looking forward to a little relaxation. Life is so busy with working a day job, having my own business, and maintaining a marriage and a house that those free moments are to be cherished despite the endemic exhaustion surrounding them.
The exhaustion makes me more susceptible to negativity. I try not to let it happen, but now and then things just get to me. Such as the incident that happened today.
My Facebook feed was scrolling along, here a video of cute baby ducks, there a friend's visit with the WADF (Weird-Ass Dream Fairy), over there a request for help in finding an inexpensive wedding dress, then a few photos from DragonCon rolled by, and so on. The usual items that I tend to see were about, nothing overly attention grabbing, really. And then I saw a post that caught my eye. It was a link to an article about a young man who identifies as female and whose school required him to remove his make-up so that he would appear male, and how the school is currently being sued regarding the issue. I was about to click the link and check the article when a comment a few posts down on the thread caught my eye.
"It was probably some fat ugly woman who isn't happy in her life who complained..." the person writing the comment said.
My heart sank, and I felt a deep moment of hopelessness. All of the work that we do trying to change the world, all of the efforts to get people to stop treating people's body size like an indicator of anything other than ...well...their body size, all of that struggle, it seems to be for nothing some days. I get so tired sometimes of fighting the fight and trying to be heard. People throw the insults and the hatred around so easily, without even really thinking about it, and they don't care. Sometimes it seems like no one cares at all, and that any hope of changing the world so that people are taken for who they are inside rather than what they look like on the outside is so far out of our reach that it might as well remain an item for fictional worlds, it will never happen in reality.
Some days I believe in the goodness of people and the rightness of the world. Some days I believe that fairness and intellect will eventually win out over meanness and bigotry, over willful ignorance and the inclination to raise the self up by stepping on others. Some days I'm an optimist.
Other days, like today, I wonder why we even try, and I think that maybe I should just shut up, withdraw into my own little world, and not care any more. Some days, like today, I wonder if it wouldn't just be easier to be numb. Some days I'm just really, really tired.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Coming to Terms with Tracking
I have a long and sordid history with Food Tracking. It has never been a love-hate thing, it has pretty consistently involved just plain Hate. I hated doing it. I hated myself for feeling the need / being told to do it. I hated the very mechanics of doing it because spending precious time weighing and measuring food then writing it down in a little notebook was not only tedious, but forced every bite I ate into Guilt Territory.
When you log your food or track your food or whatever you want to call it, you have to weigh every bite that you take and each of those bites involve an internal debate:
Eating Self: I really want this Milky Way bar.
Tracking Self: But if you eat that, you have to put it in the food log, and then those calories and those fat grams will be in black and white, taunting you, mocking you for your lack of willpower.
Eating Self: Well, I could eat it and not write it down.
Tracking Self: Sure, you could, but then you would be lying to yourself along with everyone else, because everyone knows that because you're fat you are OBVIOUSLY eating more than you think you are. You're just so used to huge portions that you don't even realize they're huge any more.
Eating Self: What? Wait...my portions aren't huge! I measure them JUST FOR YOU and I do it ALL OF THE TIME! I haven't eaten a hot meal in months because I have to stop and weigh everything before I can actually start eating!
Tracking Self: Likely story. I saw the corn you ate the other day without weighing it first.
Eating Self: ONE KERNEL! I ate one kernel of corn that fell off the plate!
Tracking Self: Uh huh. That's what they all say.
Eating Self: Fine. I won't eat the stupid Milky Way bar. Are you happy now?
Tracking Self: Not really. Are you?
Eating Self: No.
It was even worse when I was a teenager and had to take my food log to weekly doctor's appointments, because then I not only had the pressure from myself to be perfect, but I didn't want to be a disappointment to my doctor and my parents. Of course, I still was, because it didn't seem to matter what I ate or didn't ate, I was still fat.
Finally, I stopped doing any kind of tracking. I discovered intuitive eating, and Health at Every Size, and learned that I can accept myself as I am and still love myself. I don't HAVE to hate myself just because I'm fat. This was a major revelation, let me tell you! I'd been sure that I had to put off loving myself until I weighed 140 pounds, and I had to put everything else off too. My whole life had centered on hating the me I was now, and loving the me I would be when I finally learned enough willpower to be Not Fat. Now, suddenly, that had changed. It took me a while to work through all of the loss that went with losing the one thing that had been the focus of my life until then, but I finally got there and just let myself live in the moment, enjoy myself, and love myself.
But recently I started feeling rather blah. My blood sugars were going up ever so slightly, and I felt lethargic and just all-around mediocre. So I decided to start tracking my food and exercise again.
This time...this time would be different.
For about a week now I have been tracking what I eat, and the movement I do, and while I did have to fight the resurgence of some old feelings at first, I have discovered that I'm actually enjoying noting this stuff down. I think that part of it is I'm not trying to meet a certain caloric goal, and I have my settings on the website I'm using listing my goal as "remain the same weight", which means that the caloric number it DOES suggest as part of the site isn't some ridiculously small number like 1,500 calories. Actually, amusingly, I have eaten fewer than the "recommended" number of calories just about every day so far. And the deficit is worse because I have also been tracking my movement, and the site takes the calories burned into account when telling you how many calories you have left for the day.
The real reason I'm tracking my intake right now is that I'm trying to cut down my sodium consumption. I didn't realize how many things I eat that have high sodium. I love things like pretzels, and popcorn with salt, and bagels (which have a surprisingly large amount of sodium in them!). So this first couple of weeks is going to be spent just logging and seeing where I am getting the overabundance of sodium from, then I will start looking for alternatives that I still enjoy but that might be a bit lower in the salt department. I'm hoping that helps me feel less bloated and lethargic, especially since I've re-started my cardio and calisthenics.
Not only am I getting some good information out of tracking my food this time, I've finally reached a point in my life where I am doing it voluntarily, and getting the information I WANT out of it, rather than allowing the information I'm gathering to turn me into a miserable, self-loathing ball of hate. And really, that's the best victory yet.
When you log your food or track your food or whatever you want to call it, you have to weigh every bite that you take and each of those bites involve an internal debate:
Eating Self: I really want this Milky Way bar.
Tracking Self: But if you eat that, you have to put it in the food log, and then those calories and those fat grams will be in black and white, taunting you, mocking you for your lack of willpower.
Eating Self: Well, I could eat it and not write it down.
Tracking Self: Sure, you could, but then you would be lying to yourself along with everyone else, because everyone knows that because you're fat you are OBVIOUSLY eating more than you think you are. You're just so used to huge portions that you don't even realize they're huge any more.
Eating Self: What? Wait...my portions aren't huge! I measure them JUST FOR YOU and I do it ALL OF THE TIME! I haven't eaten a hot meal in months because I have to stop and weigh everything before I can actually start eating!
Tracking Self: Likely story. I saw the corn you ate the other day without weighing it first.
Eating Self: ONE KERNEL! I ate one kernel of corn that fell off the plate!
Tracking Self: Uh huh. That's what they all say.
Eating Self: Fine. I won't eat the stupid Milky Way bar. Are you happy now?
Tracking Self: Not really. Are you?
Eating Self: No.
It was even worse when I was a teenager and had to take my food log to weekly doctor's appointments, because then I not only had the pressure from myself to be perfect, but I didn't want to be a disappointment to my doctor and my parents. Of course, I still was, because it didn't seem to matter what I ate or didn't ate, I was still fat.
Finally, I stopped doing any kind of tracking. I discovered intuitive eating, and Health at Every Size, and learned that I can accept myself as I am and still love myself. I don't HAVE to hate myself just because I'm fat. This was a major revelation, let me tell you! I'd been sure that I had to put off loving myself until I weighed 140 pounds, and I had to put everything else off too. My whole life had centered on hating the me I was now, and loving the me I would be when I finally learned enough willpower to be Not Fat. Now, suddenly, that had changed. It took me a while to work through all of the loss that went with losing the one thing that had been the focus of my life until then, but I finally got there and just let myself live in the moment, enjoy myself, and love myself.
But recently I started feeling rather blah. My blood sugars were going up ever so slightly, and I felt lethargic and just all-around mediocre. So I decided to start tracking my food and exercise again.
This time...this time would be different.
For about a week now I have been tracking what I eat, and the movement I do, and while I did have to fight the resurgence of some old feelings at first, I have discovered that I'm actually enjoying noting this stuff down. I think that part of it is I'm not trying to meet a certain caloric goal, and I have my settings on the website I'm using listing my goal as "remain the same weight", which means that the caloric number it DOES suggest as part of the site isn't some ridiculously small number like 1,500 calories. Actually, amusingly, I have eaten fewer than the "recommended" number of calories just about every day so far. And the deficit is worse because I have also been tracking my movement, and the site takes the calories burned into account when telling you how many calories you have left for the day.
The real reason I'm tracking my intake right now is that I'm trying to cut down my sodium consumption. I didn't realize how many things I eat that have high sodium. I love things like pretzels, and popcorn with salt, and bagels (which have a surprisingly large amount of sodium in them!). So this first couple of weeks is going to be spent just logging and seeing where I am getting the overabundance of sodium from, then I will start looking for alternatives that I still enjoy but that might be a bit lower in the salt department. I'm hoping that helps me feel less bloated and lethargic, especially since I've re-started my cardio and calisthenics.
Not only am I getting some good information out of tracking my food this time, I've finally reached a point in my life where I am doing it voluntarily, and getting the information I WANT out of it, rather than allowing the information I'm gathering to turn me into a miserable, self-loathing ball of hate. And really, that's the best victory yet.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
First World Problems
I've been thinking a lot lately about the things that are wrong and the things that are right in my life. There are times when I get frustrated. There are times when I get angry. There are times when I think that I'm never going to achieve my goals.
Despite those moments, though, if I step back and take a really good, hard look at my life, the majority of my issues are "First World Problems". Normally I hate that phrase. It sounds so condescending, implying that people who are dealing with the issues of a non-Third World country are lesser beings because their problems are of less import. To me it is important to remember that each person's problems are important to them. You may think my problems aren't worthy of worry, or even ridiculous, but to ME they mean the world.
All in all, though, I have a pretty good life. I have a beautiful home. My husband is loving and supportive. We are owned by three beautiful, adorable, demanding kitties who sleep plastered to my side every night (except when they're busy waking me up at 3 a.m. to get pets).
We stumble through life, doing the best we can with what we have, and trying to achieve everything that we can possibly achieve. We all think of ourselves as that special snowflake...just like everyone else. And we all do have things that make us special and unique, but we can't all win at our dreams. Not everyone can be an All-Star pitcher or a Broadway star. Not everyone can have a biography written about them. Yes, we each have our moments of amazing, and it is quite possible that we all should have a biography written about us because those moments are what connect us to the rest of humanity. We fight, we live, we love, we die. Our hearts burn to leave something behind us, something wonderful and to know that we'll be remembered. Maybe we won't be remembered forever, but we all hope that we'll be remembered for a while after we're gone.
The thing is, maybe we need to focus a little more on the here and now. The future will be there, and our dreams will change and morph to fit our lives as we go through them, but today is full of opportunities that we look past in our rush to get to the future. There are roses we haven't admired, there are sunsets we haven't watched, there are people we haven't touched who could use those moments of kindness to help light their days. We can be the candle in the darkness. We don't have to be a spotlight that turns night into day for the whole world, there are so few opportunities to create that kind of massive change, but how often do we miss the chances to brighten someone else's darkness?
I've been thinking of things that I can do. There's a homeless man who camps under an overpass near work. I want to do something, but have been afraid until now. I think, though, that I've come up with some options. I don't say this for accolades or pats on the back, but to share some thoughts on how you might make someone's life better for a moment, for a day, forever...
There are things you can do that help people have a brighter day that are smaller, but shine just as much light.
Despite those moments, though, if I step back and take a really good, hard look at my life, the majority of my issues are "First World Problems". Normally I hate that phrase. It sounds so condescending, implying that people who are dealing with the issues of a non-Third World country are lesser beings because their problems are of less import. To me it is important to remember that each person's problems are important to them. You may think my problems aren't worthy of worry, or even ridiculous, but to ME they mean the world.
All in all, though, I have a pretty good life. I have a beautiful home. My husband is loving and supportive. We are owned by three beautiful, adorable, demanding kitties who sleep plastered to my side every night (except when they're busy waking me up at 3 a.m. to get pets).
We stumble through life, doing the best we can with what we have, and trying to achieve everything that we can possibly achieve. We all think of ourselves as that special snowflake...just like everyone else. And we all do have things that make us special and unique, but we can't all win at our dreams. Not everyone can be an All-Star pitcher or a Broadway star. Not everyone can have a biography written about them. Yes, we each have our moments of amazing, and it is quite possible that we all should have a biography written about us because those moments are what connect us to the rest of humanity. We fight, we live, we love, we die. Our hearts burn to leave something behind us, something wonderful and to know that we'll be remembered. Maybe we won't be remembered forever, but we all hope that we'll be remembered for a while after we're gone.
The thing is, maybe we need to focus a little more on the here and now. The future will be there, and our dreams will change and morph to fit our lives as we go through them, but today is full of opportunities that we look past in our rush to get to the future. There are roses we haven't admired, there are sunsets we haven't watched, there are people we haven't touched who could use those moments of kindness to help light their days. We can be the candle in the darkness. We don't have to be a spotlight that turns night into day for the whole world, there are so few opportunities to create that kind of massive change, but how often do we miss the chances to brighten someone else's darkness?
I've been thinking of things that I can do. There's a homeless man who camps under an overpass near work. I want to do something, but have been afraid until now. I think, though, that I've come up with some options. I don't say this for accolades or pats on the back, but to share some thoughts on how you might make someone's life better for a moment, for a day, forever...
- This is Texas. It gets hot in the summer. We take having clean drinking water for granted when we're sitting in our living rooms or at our desks at work. But everyone doesn't have the option to get up and go to the sink for a drink of water. Go to the store, buy a few gallons of drinking water and drop them off when you see someone who needs them.
- Do you have a bunch of extra pillows around the house? I know we do. They're not horrible, but they're past their prime. I'm thinking that they will go in the back of my vehicle so that I can offer them to folks who may need them, along with any extra blankets that we don't really use.
- There are survivalist / prepper sites that sell things like solar ovens and solar stoves. Or camp stoves with safe fuel bricks. These things could make the difference in terms of someone getting a hot meal. Combine them with a case of canned goods and a decent quality manual can-opener, and you could be giving someone a month's fewer hunger pangs.
- Sometimes we can't carry bulky things around, but if you have some extra cash, buy a gift card to a local fast food place. Keep a supply of $20 or $25 gift cards around that you can hand folks when they ask for help. Is fast food the best thing in the world? No...but it is better than being hungry, and there are relatively healthy options available if they want to get them.
- Donations to the local food bank or homeless shelter are always a good option too.
There are things you can do that help people have a brighter day that are smaller, but shine just as much light.
- A friend gave me this idea today: Write out a bunch of thank you cards for the people who touch your life even in the smallest ways. Give one to the bank teller who takes your deposit, to the fast food worker who gets your happy meal for you, or to the attendant at the gas station who takes your money for the cup of coffee and doughnut in the morning.
- Buy the coffee of the person behind you in line.
- Let the person with only a couple of items go ahead of you at the grocery store.
- Send a card to a friend that you don't get to talk to as much as you'd like.
Let's be nicer to each other. Let's be nicer to strangers as well as friends. Let's become the candle that lights someone's darkness. Just one candle, that's all the world needs, because if I'm a candle and you're a candle and everyone else is a candle, eventually all of those candles add up and the world is glowing with light. And in that light, our First World Problems will fade from view for a little while.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
My Running Battle With Movement
Movement and I have had a running battle for most of my life. When I was young it wasn't a difficult thing. In school I played soccer through 8th grade, I rode my bike for miles and miles during the summer, I swam as much as humanly possible without getting waterlogged, and I played volleyball all through high school and partway through college. I liked moving, even if you couldn't tell by looking at me that I did all of those athletic things.
Then I got older, and the rhetoric sank in, turning movement from something enjoyable to something to be suffered through. I stopped enjoying working up a sweat and began to treat movement as a punishment for eating "bad" foods, and for being fat.
Believe me when I tell you that there's nothing that will turn love into hate faster than taking something and making it into a punishment, a thing you HAVE to do. So many kids lose their love of reading because they HAVE to read literature that is then picked apart bit by bit, taking it from being enjoyable to an arduous task. Children also lose their love of movement when the authority figures in their world and society as a whole treat it as something that HAS to be done to turn all the fatties into not fatties. It gets worse when that doesn't work, leading to a cycle of self-doubt, self-hatred, and a growing aversion to the very thing they used to love.
I was one of those kids.
Since I've become an adult I've started and stopped exercising more times than I can even count. I will start a movement program and stick with it for a while (length of times vary), then will start finding reasons to set it aside for a time. After a while, I just stop doing what I had started. Then I go for a time without doing any sorts of movement at all, which tends to lead to me feeling less than my best. After a while I realize that I felt better when I was moving, so I start being active again...for a while. Over, and over, and over.
Each time I start moving again, I feel good about myself. I feel accomplished. I vow that THIS time I'll stick with it! Each time I reach the point where I start finding reasons to stop, and slowly the movement ceases, and I not only feel physically worse, but I've added another notch to my Guilt Belt. It is kind of like a gun belt, but instead of notching it for each person I've shot, I mentally notch it for each time I've 'failed' at movement and feel guilty about it.
Right now I'm at the start-up point again. I had been going to the gym in my company's building. It is a small, but decently equipped gym that is free for all residents of the office building I work in. I was pretty consistent, and felt good...and then stopped. That was several months ago. Recently, however, I've felt pretty crappy, to be honest, and I knew that a large part of it was that I wasn't moving. Sitting at the office, sitting when I get home, just sitting sitting sitting. So today I grabbed my gym bag, finished my work day, and went down to walk on the treadmill for a while. As always, it feels good. As always, I find myself hoping that THIS is the time that I keep it up. But beneath all of that, I find myself wanting to be kinder to myself than I have been. I'm making a concentrated effort NOT to plan on doing this until the day I keel over and die, but rather I'm going to enjoy it and just take it one day at a time.
I KNOW that I feel better when I'm moving. I just need to break the block that equates movement with negative emotions and rediscover that joy of moving. I have it in small bursts, but I need to find it and keep it for the long run. (Heh...I made a funny. "Long run"..."movement"...hee hee hee!)
Changing the thoughts and habits of a lifetime is never easy, but I'm going to give it my best shot.
Then I got older, and the rhetoric sank in, turning movement from something enjoyable to something to be suffered through. I stopped enjoying working up a sweat and began to treat movement as a punishment for eating "bad" foods, and for being fat.
Believe me when I tell you that there's nothing that will turn love into hate faster than taking something and making it into a punishment, a thing you HAVE to do. So many kids lose their love of reading because they HAVE to read literature that is then picked apart bit by bit, taking it from being enjoyable to an arduous task. Children also lose their love of movement when the authority figures in their world and society as a whole treat it as something that HAS to be done to turn all the fatties into not fatties. It gets worse when that doesn't work, leading to a cycle of self-doubt, self-hatred, and a growing aversion to the very thing they used to love.
I was one of those kids.
Since I've become an adult I've started and stopped exercising more times than I can even count. I will start a movement program and stick with it for a while (length of times vary), then will start finding reasons to set it aside for a time. After a while, I just stop doing what I had started. Then I go for a time without doing any sorts of movement at all, which tends to lead to me feeling less than my best. After a while I realize that I felt better when I was moving, so I start being active again...for a while. Over, and over, and over.
Each time I start moving again, I feel good about myself. I feel accomplished. I vow that THIS time I'll stick with it! Each time I reach the point where I start finding reasons to stop, and slowly the movement ceases, and I not only feel physically worse, but I've added another notch to my Guilt Belt. It is kind of like a gun belt, but instead of notching it for each person I've shot, I mentally notch it for each time I've 'failed' at movement and feel guilty about it.
Right now I'm at the start-up point again. I had been going to the gym in my company's building. It is a small, but decently equipped gym that is free for all residents of the office building I work in. I was pretty consistent, and felt good...and then stopped. That was several months ago. Recently, however, I've felt pretty crappy, to be honest, and I knew that a large part of it was that I wasn't moving. Sitting at the office, sitting when I get home, just sitting sitting sitting. So today I grabbed my gym bag, finished my work day, and went down to walk on the treadmill for a while. As always, it feels good. As always, I find myself hoping that THIS is the time that I keep it up. But beneath all of that, I find myself wanting to be kinder to myself than I have been. I'm making a concentrated effort NOT to plan on doing this until the day I keel over and die, but rather I'm going to enjoy it and just take it one day at a time.
I KNOW that I feel better when I'm moving. I just need to break the block that equates movement with negative emotions and rediscover that joy of moving. I have it in small bursts, but I need to find it and keep it for the long run. (Heh...I made a funny. "Long run"..."movement"...hee hee hee!)
Changing the thoughts and habits of a lifetime is never easy, but I'm going to give it my best shot.
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