If you haven't read my post, " Getting Out of the Trashcan: A New/Old/New Journey", this all won't make sense to you. So, if you want some context, head back there. Then come back here. Then take a nap. Then... wait.. what am I saying? OH YES!
In an effort to keep these next 6 months as intentional as possible, I figure it'd be wise for me to check in every now and then to monitor my journey.
It's been a week. A week without knowing what I weigh, without taking any measurements, without knowing how many calories I've consumed, without exercising when I feel fat, and without looking at or taking photos of myself in order to judge my body.
At the beginning of the week I was high on it. High on the purity of my perception of myself. I had a ton of extra space and energy with which to spend on... well, whatever I wanted to because without the knowledge of where my body was at and with the restriction of exercise as a celebration of health, I found myself very present to what was in front of me... rather than dreaming of how I could get skinnier.
As the week crept forward though, so crept a foggy guilt that I was doing something wrong. What started out as a sense of freedom turned itself nastily into a sense of laziness and fattening. The temptation to step on the scale and jot it down in my sneaky little notebook I have hidden in my bathroom ( contains measurements and scale numbers from the past two years or so. Yeah) and subsequently, to create a plan of action grew enormously from last Sunday to today.
I know that this will be harder than I planned on. I think it has to do with the absence-presence rule. Ok, I don't think its called that but, I think of it similar to your average recovery patient. When someone is recovering from alcohol or drug addiction, they are encouraged to find something else to be addicted to that is good instead of damaging for them. Its not enough to just cut out the bad. The bad must be replaced with good.
So, this week I will take a more proactive approach. It was good to cut some things out but now I have to dive into what got me on this path and how I can course-correct in a real way. I have to start planting truth where I've uprooted scale numbers and mean things.
Some things I've noticed this week that really make it difficult to be healthy are things I'll look into a bit this week as well. They are:
1) Media.
Holy smokes. I don't think I've ever noticed how much weight-loss talk there is out there. Its constant! I'm planning on doing an experiment this week to see how many weight-loss advertisements I come across in one day, just to see. Our culture is obsessed with it, its no wonder we are, too!
2) Female Social Norms.
My favorite example of this is in Mean Girls where Lindsay Lohan's character interacts with the little clique of popular girls in front of the mirror. Each of them shouts out a complaint about themselves and then it gets to LiLo, who plays a really well adjusted girl who is happy with herself. They all look at her waiting for her to bash herself... and when she can't think of anything, it's unacceptable for them. This is a funny take on it but, the truth is that in most circles of girls, its not okay for a girl to be confident. She's deemed a bitch or conceited if she is. Its bad. We need to fix it. I think there's a way for us to love ourselves in a way that doesn't make it intimidating for outsiders. It can make us gentler and kinder. Also, I don't think we realize that when we bash ourselves, it hurts the chances of those around us loving themselves. More on this later.
3) The weight loss craze of my facebook friends. Jeez. JEEEEZ. I understand that it feels good to get in shape, I do. However, the obsessive posts I read on the daily from folks posting their progress and even their "Feeling fat, going on a run" type posts have become a tad over the top. I think there's value in being fit and such but, I think all this chatter is promoting the idea I'm trying to avoid- that in order to love oneself one must measure up to a standard of fitness. The idea that contentment with oneself only comes at peak fitness is a lie that makes us all strive and miss out on enjoying ourselves NOW. And what happens when all that starts fading? When we get old and soft? When we have babies? Does that mean that we'll never be as beautiful? Can't. It can't mean that.
Whoa, I got off topic there. Its my blerg. I'll blerg awry if I wanna.
Anyhow, so week one has been both liberating and revealing. This isn't gonna be a walk in the park, but, that's where I'm at on this journey.
Far I have come. Far I must go.
I leave you with this piece of tomfoolery:
Yeah, I thought I was googling "monitor" for an image for this post, but instead I googled "monito" which means "little monkey" en espanol.
This one is friends with a dove. Clearly.
Until Tomorrow,
Carly Calmes the First