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Unacceptable Girth
Jan. 5th, 2012 01:51 pmA few weeks ago we had a friend came visiting us from a pretty far bit away, which gave us the opportunity to see a lot of people we wouldn't have seen otherwise. One of them was a really cool Indian woman who was refreshingly blunt and gregarious. We embraced and regarded another, and she told me with a smile that I looked different.
"Yeah, I gained a little bit of weight," I said half-jokingly.
"You gained a LOT of weight," she told me. I watched what I ate that night, but the damage had mostly been done by that point. My clothes were fitting me less, t-shirts and button-downs stretching over my prominent belly. I was starting to get a little breathless climbing even one set of stairs. Despite this, giving in to the temptation of sweet pastries was far too easy and motivating myself to exercise was far too hard. The result? The numbers on the scale are creeping up steadily.
At the end of his visit, my friend looked me right in the eye. He's British in just about every way possible -- unfailingly polite, with no bone of contention in him. That's why it was so shocking when he told me bluntly, firmly, "You need to lose weight."
That was the wake-up call I needed. I've always known that eating less and exercising more would be a good thing, but in the kind of way that you vaguely know that fire is hot and horses are big. It's not until you're confronted with uncompromising reality that it hits you. Wow. This is absolutely true. Fire is hot. Horses are big. And I weigh too much.
I've gone from a low of 181 pounds earlier this year up to 192 right around now. I wasn't rail-thin down at my 'fighting' weight, and now I'm noticeably...girthy. I was 'blessed' in the genetic lottery with a fat-deposit box of a stomach, so that's what tends to grow first and disappear last. It's a little difficult to shop for clothes at this point; stuff that fits my upper torso well tends to stretch around my stomach, and my pants are forced lower on my hips to make room. It's uncomfortable and it looks bad and it just sucks a lot. Trying to look better is next to impossible until the frame I'm covering actually, you know, looks better.
A recent clothes-shopping trip really brought this home. There were so many pieces I loved, but couldn't pull off because of my body's shape. I think the three-punch of vanity was motivation enough to really dedicate myself to slimming down. Still, motivation doesn't always translate to action, which is the big dilemma right now.
Because despite my best intentions the basic facts remain. I love to eat and I don't really like to exercise. Something has to change in order to beat this -- it goes beyond setting up habits or counting calories or dutifully setting a schedule. I have to find a way to enjoy eating right and exercising, or else none of the changes I want to make stick.
On the other side of the New Year I'll be trying to tackle this. I'll be focusing more on running (both indoors and outdoors) and the elliptical, then stretching to increase my flexibility. Maybe there's a way I can 'gamify' this, at least beyond what you do with Fitocracy. Maybe, with the husband's help, I can set up a little reward program. Run three miles, earn something nice.
Eating is going to be a little more difficult. With sweets I've developed the mindset of the addict -- there's no such thing as a little bite here or a small treat there. I'll have a little bit, and there's a rush of pleasure that immediately needs to happen again, so I'll have more. And then more. Before too long a treat becomes a habit, and I've sabotaged myself with weight gain. Something has to give.
The idea of giving up sweets the way an addict gives up their vice makes the world seem cold and gray. ;) But at this point, it might just be necessary. I don't think I can control myself too well when it comes to cookies, cakes, pastries and candies. I've tried, but there's just no willpower there. I don't mean to trivialize the very real nature of addiction by linking it to my situation, but that's the closest analogy I've got for it. Maybe it's time to drop those sweet things entirely in favor of fruits and yogurts. But in order to make that stick, I have to make a positive choice (I'm going to eat fruits now.) instead of a negative one (I can't have sweets any more.).
Those are just a couple of ideas, and I'll be writing about more as they come to me. I was hoping some measure of public accountability would help me keep on the straight and narrow, but I don't think that'll do the trick any more either. I think I need to become obsessed about food, strict with it; I need to view it as a battle that I'll be fighting my entire life, or maybe more "a game of inches". I need to fight for every inch that I lose, because that's where life happens. In the words of the great Al Pacino.
"Yeah, I gained a little bit of weight," I said half-jokingly.
"You gained a LOT of weight," she told me. I watched what I ate that night, but the damage had mostly been done by that point. My clothes were fitting me less, t-shirts and button-downs stretching over my prominent belly. I was starting to get a little breathless climbing even one set of stairs. Despite this, giving in to the temptation of sweet pastries was far too easy and motivating myself to exercise was far too hard. The result? The numbers on the scale are creeping up steadily.
At the end of his visit, my friend looked me right in the eye. He's British in just about every way possible -- unfailingly polite, with no bone of contention in him. That's why it was so shocking when he told me bluntly, firmly, "You need to lose weight."
That was the wake-up call I needed. I've always known that eating less and exercising more would be a good thing, but in the kind of way that you vaguely know that fire is hot and horses are big. It's not until you're confronted with uncompromising reality that it hits you. Wow. This is absolutely true. Fire is hot. Horses are big. And I weigh too much.
I've gone from a low of 181 pounds earlier this year up to 192 right around now. I wasn't rail-thin down at my 'fighting' weight, and now I'm noticeably...girthy. I was 'blessed' in the genetic lottery with a fat-deposit box of a stomach, so that's what tends to grow first and disappear last. It's a little difficult to shop for clothes at this point; stuff that fits my upper torso well tends to stretch around my stomach, and my pants are forced lower on my hips to make room. It's uncomfortable and it looks bad and it just sucks a lot. Trying to look better is next to impossible until the frame I'm covering actually, you know, looks better.
A recent clothes-shopping trip really brought this home. There were so many pieces I loved, but couldn't pull off because of my body's shape. I think the three-punch of vanity was motivation enough to really dedicate myself to slimming down. Still, motivation doesn't always translate to action, which is the big dilemma right now.
Because despite my best intentions the basic facts remain. I love to eat and I don't really like to exercise. Something has to change in order to beat this -- it goes beyond setting up habits or counting calories or dutifully setting a schedule. I have to find a way to enjoy eating right and exercising, or else none of the changes I want to make stick.
On the other side of the New Year I'll be trying to tackle this. I'll be focusing more on running (both indoors and outdoors) and the elliptical, then stretching to increase my flexibility. Maybe there's a way I can 'gamify' this, at least beyond what you do with Fitocracy. Maybe, with the husband's help, I can set up a little reward program. Run three miles, earn something nice.
Eating is going to be a little more difficult. With sweets I've developed the mindset of the addict -- there's no such thing as a little bite here or a small treat there. I'll have a little bit, and there's a rush of pleasure that immediately needs to happen again, so I'll have more. And then more. Before too long a treat becomes a habit, and I've sabotaged myself with weight gain. Something has to give.
The idea of giving up sweets the way an addict gives up their vice makes the world seem cold and gray. ;) But at this point, it might just be necessary. I don't think I can control myself too well when it comes to cookies, cakes, pastries and candies. I've tried, but there's just no willpower there. I don't mean to trivialize the very real nature of addiction by linking it to my situation, but that's the closest analogy I've got for it. Maybe it's time to drop those sweet things entirely in favor of fruits and yogurts. But in order to make that stick, I have to make a positive choice (I'm going to eat fruits now.) instead of a negative one (I can't have sweets any more.).
Those are just a couple of ideas, and I'll be writing about more as they come to me. I was hoping some measure of public accountability would help me keep on the straight and narrow, but I don't think that'll do the trick any more either. I think I need to become obsessed about food, strict with it; I need to view it as a battle that I'll be fighting my entire life, or maybe more "a game of inches". I need to fight for every inch that I lose, because that's where life happens. In the words of the great Al Pacino.
