Cease-fire

It took the kind words of AHappyWife to remind me how important it is to be gentle with yourself. Her comment got me thinking about how adversarial my relationship with myself has gotten over this whole weight loss thing. I feel as if there are two of me: the timid, wishful person who gosh, if it’s not too much trouble, thinks she might like to lose some weight at some point, and the out-of-control, demanding, childish me, who tantrums and binges JUST BECAUSE SHE FEELS LIKE IT, DAMNIT!!! The timid, dare-not-be-hopeful Luna walks on eggshells around the tyrannical, demanding Luna, secretly afraid of what she might be capable of. Eating until our stomach bursts? Just watch me. Willfully getting so fat that the only thing we can wear is the living room curtains? Heh. Step aside, missy, and let me at that fridge.

So I got to thinking that it’s time to end the madness. It’s time for a cease-fire in this weird internal war over what I choose to put in my mouth and how I choose to feel about my body. I’m uniting this timid, hopeless, powerless part of myself with this other part—the part that wants what I want NOW—and realizing that kindness toward myself can only be a good thing.

Today I did something I’ve never done before, though I’ve recommended it to clients countless times. It feels cheesy and silly, but I think it kind of works. I printed off some little saying for myself, incredibly basic things like You can do it! and Calm, calm, calm… and I put them around the house. Very simple, yet it makes me feel as if we’re all on the same side here, which is a nice way to feel. If AHappyWife can say kind and supportive things to me, I can do the same for myself. Group hug!

The other thing I got to thinking today was that I think too damn much sometimes. Looking back on these posts, they’re things I need to sort out for myself, and if they elicit some comments from someone who feels inspired to tell me “Me too!” so much the better. But I need to make some active, concrete changes as well. I’m still off the Mountain Dew (whoo-hoo!), still eating more salads, etc, but it’s time for a few more Baby Steps.

So, goals for the coming week:

1. Take my lunch to work every day.I got myself organized today and boiled a bunch of eggs and steamed a few heads of broccoli.I made myself dinner tonight (grilled some lean beef) and have leftovers ready to go for tomorrow.
2. Lay off the fast food for dinner.This is a hard one for me.I work long days, and by the end of the day I’m shot and I’m hungry.I’m going to take some string cheese with my lunch as kind of a late afternoon snack to gobble between clients, and then when I leave I won’t be ready to eat my own shoes.I’ve got some chicken breasts thawed for an easy dinner thing, which should help with the need for something easy.

Good enough for one week, I think.

Finally, accountability. I have avoided doing the weekly weigh-in thing here, out of fear that I just won’t be able to get it together enough to actually lose some weight, and I’ll have nothing good to report. Well, I resolve to report the numbers weekly, whether they’re good, bad or ugly. It may be that I’ll end up with a fairly unique beast in the blog-o-verse: a weight gain blog. But I don’t think so.

So here’s the big bad number for today: 240 lbs.

OK. That wasn’t so hard. I’ll have to look at how some of the rest of you report your progress to find a format I like, but it’s a start.

Have a good week!