Maybe you haven't noticed, but I haven't been blogging much about eating or exercising lately. This is not a good sign. Like my
Gemini self, I have been divided about this blog thing and my weight life in general since I started this. I get mad that all I do is write about not doing what I set out to do--who wants to hear that? I get frustrated that my whole
fricking life has circled around my emotional crisis of not doing the same thing--exercise, eat right, give a crap. I look for other blogs to focus on so I won't be so limited in my scope. . . I end up with no one who can relate to me.
In a few weeks, I will turn 46. . . another year gone by with no personal progress. In fact, I think I'm more down than I was.
I've been really bothered by something I read on
Stages of Change recently. His post says being fat is a choice. I find this hard to. . .
umm. . . swallow. I am not saying that I don't I have a role in being fat. I certainly overeat and I've returned to a
sedentary life. But you know, there are plenty of other people out there who overeat and are
sedentary who are not obese.
OK, so I have a genetic tendency--gives me all the more reason to eat right and exercise--right?
I just don't think it's all figured out yet. Everyone makes it sounds like there are basically 2 components, but I think there's an unidentified X and maybe also a Y.
I have above average intelligence. I've accomplished a lot of things in my life. By most accounts, I'm successful. I'm compassionate. I have
perseverance. I've been fat since I was 7 years old. Even when I lost 60 lbs and kept it off for 6 years, and worked with a trainer 3 times a week,, and saw a counselor, I was still shopping in the plus department.
Maybe Fat is something I choose. . . I have never really believed the existing weight loss programs would work for me. So I don't have a huge history of trying diets. I've basically tried 3 things. . . a kind of Atkins when I was in high school (lost 35 lbs and started gaining it back instantly); counting calories in college (1000 a day--lost ~35 lbs and kept it off a while--was the only time I briefly shopped out of the plus sizes), and Weight Watchers, again and again and again and again.
They say the sign of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Of course, I've tried to shake WW up a bit. I added exercise. I added a trainer. I added a counselor. I added antidepressants.
I never thought weight loss surgery would work for me--how would that change my brain? I never thought liquid diets or packaged food would do it for me--what would that teach me? Except I'm sure it would be easier to move my body if there were less of it to move. And I guess I've always believed that being fat is my fault enough that pills didn't appeal.
Maybe I do choose to be fat because something in my brain says fuck it.
Maybe I do choose to be Fat because even though I fear having a heart attack one day when I'm just standing still (I told my doc boss this week that if I had a heart attack I hope it took me out because I couldn't stand the humiliation), it doesn't spur me. Even though I feel like I'm just sitting waiting to be shot at with the diagnosis of diabetes, and even though I think,
Will that do it for me? Will that make any difference? Would that be the click? or would I just slink away in self pity and watch myself get bigger and bigger, deeper and deeper in the muck so blue sky is unreachable?
All these articles and people talk about being healthy to live longer and I think, what is the point? I don't have children. My husband is older. I don't do anything but work. Who wants to live longer to spend the evenings to watch
TV or read one more book?
I wanted to travel, but then went on a few trips and felt like it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. Hubby isn't keen on traveling. Of course there are people I love and who love me, but no one who needs or depends on me that I need to sustain myself for. I don't believe in an after life.
Plus, as I get older, I realize more and more things I thought I wanted really aren't practical anymore--I've tried taking piano lessons (at 41), but it seems unlikely I'll ever really play. I sucked worse at trying the guitar. I've always wanted to write fiction. . . but I only have one completed short story to my name (unpublished). I think it's too late to really learn another language, and to do it, I'd need to travel (see above).
I think of myself as a friendly and outgoing person, but I basically have no friends (no one nearby or that I talk to frequently).
So maybe I do choose to be fat. Maybe being fat keeps me from trying one more thing that I realize wasn't as neat as I thought it would be. Maybe being fat gives me a reason for why people don't want to be around me instead of something more painful for me to take. (Like I'm boring and lazy and overall pathetic and too loud and outspoken and just plain out of sync with the modern world.)
I must be choosing to be fat because ever
fricking morning my alarm goes off at 6 and I lie there hating myself. Saying get the fuck up and walk. And it rarely happens.
I must choose this ever single fucking day because even though I really like fresh foods--tomatoes and balsamic and
portabello mushrooms and asparagus. . . I let food rot in the fridge and order pizza.
I used to have a cross stitched sign in my room that said Life is not a series of chance but a series of choices. Stages of change is probably right; I probably am choosing this.
The question is why? Why the hell would anyone choose this? And how the hell do I force myself to make another choice? Or is the easier choice to just stop letting fat be the focus on my life? Just give up and coast down hill until genetics and survival of the fittest takes its natural toll?
Al Jolson, 1886, known for singing in black face
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