Looking at my Old Self for Motivation Today

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Can any of you relate to the feelings I had back in ’02?  What has your experience been with reading past journal entries?

Ok guys, I’m off for a mini-work-out before class.  I hope you are all doing well and thriving.

<3,

The Cranky One

You guys…I am gifted in the art of grinning and bearing it. If you knew my professional work history, you’d know why I adapted this trait, but let me just tell ya… Walking around all day with a smile plastered to my face, taking people’s ish with grace and swallowing my pride so much so that it leaks out my toes and never returns, is exhausting. It seems if we have our “eye on the prize” we can put up with a lot.  If we know that we’re doing something as a means to an end, it gets easier to do it. I can’t tell you how many times I conjured my inner Dewey Finn (Jack Black) in School of Rock and thought to myself, “You’re gonna be a funny little foot note on my epic a**!”

But our health goals don’t have an end.  I know Jen gets frustrated with this too.  I feel like a little kid in the backseat of a van on a family vacation asking repeatedly and annoyingly, “Are we there yet?! Are we there yet?!”  I just want to be there instead of on this journey to getting there.  You will be quick to say “life is about the journey” and usually I will perk up with my Cheshire grin and pat you on the back and say, “yes, yes it is, life is ALL about the journey!”

Today, meh.  I’m ready to be there. The problem is knowing where there is.  After yesterday’s weigh-in, you will see I am 1.2 pounds away from a level of there.  128 pounds was my goal weight.  But does it end there? No, it does not and won’t ever.  I started to feel guilty because I really am not happy being so close to there as I’m sure others think I should be.

The thing is — 128 pounds is a contingent and fleeting arbitrary number, whereas my health and happiness are these intricate, worthwhile goals.  Yes, I’m happy I’ve lost 150 pounds, let’s get that out of the way.  But being 1-pound away from 128, do I all of a sudden feel this overwhelming sense of completion?  Nope.  Why?  Because I’ve got loads of issues to work on still and know I’ve got to keep up with this healthy lifestyle for eternity.  Why would my health goals be any different from my intellectual goals? I wouldn’t ever stop reading and learning, so why would I stop working on my physical health.  If my mental and intellectual goals are life-long, shouldn’t my health ones be too? So, you see, I can rationalize how I should feel and how I won’t ever be at the “destination” of being “done,” so should I just change my destination to being happy with never being done?

I’m sure a lot of you want to smack me a little and say, “be happy you are so close to your goal weight!”  So let me say I am HAPPY my hard work has been paying off.  But I am still struggling with three major issues:

1. How will I maintain this active lifestyle forever?  I love being able to work out as much as I do.  Love it.  But once school starts up again, my current work-out plan will not be feasible.  Is that MizFit’s voice in my head going, “Didn’t I say you have to make a workout plan you can keep up for the rest of your life?” Yes, MizFit, and I love your genius advice, but I am a stubborn mule who usually ends of being that ass who kicks herself in the ass.
2. I still have body image issues I need to work on.  I have stopped saying aloud what I think inside because I am tired of people wanting to strangle me and say, “stop trying to lose weight, you’re skinny already!”  Don’t you see that it’s not about being skinny, it’s about me looking in the mirror and going, “damn Gina! That’s how I like it!”  But I don’t ever want to look in the mirror and go, “Done! Now go eat a slice of pie!”  I want to be happy being in progress because this progress is never going to end my friends.
3. I have learned how to make-up for bad habits that still linger, but have not actually learned how to fix the bad habit.  In other words, I still have bouts of over-eating (yes, over-eating counts even if it’s on fruit, veggies, whole-wheat pita, whatever!), but have learned how to counter the effects with under-eating the next day and working-out to oblivion.  This is great for weigh-in time, and not-so-good for my physical and emotional health.

So you see — I will perennially be a work-in-progress.  While I do pride myself in being a work-in-progress and pride myself in having worked hard to come as far as I have, some days it’s just not as easy to be content with the journey.

Do I ever think for a second that this journey isn’t worth it?  Never.  I can bitch and moan forever, but the truth is that I really am smiling inside knowing that I’m working on my issues and making progress.  Just as new issues will forever arise for me to work on, I am always and forever becoming a stronger person because of them.

Thanks for reading.  Food post to follow.

- Annabel

Anyhow, a new video commentary from NY Times discusses the same topic – magazines touching up photos of women and how this affects women’s perceptions of beauty and their self-esteem (or does it?).  Should magazines disclose that they’ve touched up photos and how much? It raises interesting questions of beauty, perceptions of beauty and why the hell we have to Photoshop models to the extent that their beauty is unnatural and unobtainable (then why do we find it beautiful? why do it at all?).  But — one could argue that if we have to disclose that magazine pictures were photo-shopped, “regular, run-of-the-mill” girls should disclose how much make up they wear and how long it took to do their hair so that people don’t assume they roll out of bed looking that way.  I’m not arguing that – but one could argue that (except that models tend to be viewed as benchmarks from which the rest of the population gauges their beauty).  What do you think? What is the alternative?  Do you feel insecure after skimming through chick magazines and seeing all the bony 12-year-old-boy-looking chick models with plump lips and perfect lashes? Not gonna lie…there was a time when all I wanted was to be as skinny as a 12-year-old boy! (Don’t use that against me!)

See NY Times video here.