A bit of harsh reality
Apr. 11th, 2014 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oceansedgeWe're really good at making plans. James, myself, no one is better at researching and learning and gathering together source information and putting together a plan.
We are, less adept, at putting a plan into action. That kind of makes us daydreamers.
It's made for a bit of inner turmoil, of that 'ok, we did the big change to get what we wanted, how come we don't have what we want?' moments. There's an inner dissatisfaction with our lives at the moment. Nothing is really *wrong*, it's just not quite *right* yet. Some of that is our own fault, some of that is just a function of where we are in our lives, and some of it is a function of resources, some of it is just a function of "christ it's been a long winter". "The reality is never the same as the dream. Always."
However, one's life is always about the choices we make, if you're not happy, make different choices. At the moment there aren't a lot of choices we can make. Except day by day doing what one can.
Ok that was a long introduction to something that isn't easy for me to talk about - has never been easy to talk about.
I am fat.
Yeah no revelations there to anyone who knows me. It's always a difficult and touchy subject for me to talk about. On the one hand there's this whole body image self esteem thing that no matter how much as a woman you try to outgrow and distance yourself from. Still it's always there, even if just a tiny seed. Non of us like to say we're fat. Self acceptance is a wonderful thing, and *mostly* I have that. I recall reading someone's tag line somewhere that 'being fat is hard, being slim is hard, choose your hard" or something like that. I realized that I could give up most of the foods I loved, the cooking and the creating, the artistry I love, and devote hours a day to exercise and working out and I could be thin. I know a lot of people who love the physicality of their daily work outs and wouldn't be without it, who love running and marathons and the like. That's not me. It's never been me, running, weight lifting, aerobics, sports - it's never been me. I am not graceful, or athletic. I don't want to make running my hobby. My hobbies are writing and reading and researching and designing and cooking. That's what I do. That is my love and my joy. And I'm perfectly OK with that. Still this reality is not what I dreamed.
Admission: I am over 300 lbs. How much over I couldn't tell you exactly this moment. For the moment that's not the important part. The important part is that my weight is becoming disabling. That has been my fear over the years. It wasn't easy that I was no longer comfortable with cameras and mirrors, but I could live with avoiding those. I can't live with the disabling parts. Honestly it doesn't happen that you wake up one morning and suddenly you're disabled. It creeps up on you with each pound. Things get harder and harder and harder, and you begin to realize more and more you can no longer do things you could do before. This reality is not what I dreamed.
I've battled with my weight most of my life. I don't really need a lot of advice on how, or what I should do, I don't need another weight loss/exercise advice book for my birthday. My weight and I are on intensely initimate terms, I know it well. I know what my choices are. So that isn't really what this is about.
Part of the life choices of making the big move from suburban living to rural living was that there would be gardening work and farm work and walking and working with the dogs and cycling into the village and all of those things would lead me into a more active lifestyle and thus better able to balance the other more sedentary pursuits and finding a more passive balance in this battle. That was the dream. When we were living suburban and I was working and taking a more active approach to tackling my weight issues - it was a battle. It was an hour a day on a machine, it was constant notebooks and notes about how much of what I was eating and an hour a day of chronicling it counting and measuring and calculating the calorie carb and fat reduction in rebuilding a cake recipe and how much of that was 'allowed'. I mean really - losing weight became pretty much my only hobby, and it wasn't all that successful. I really don't want to put myself in a place again where I'm at war with food - I can't, I won't.
So I'm at a place of making some tough choices. I need to change my hard - for a while at least. The simple fact is that my current weight has now interfered with my other life choices, it's limiting my abilities to do the other things I wanted to do, that were supposed to help keep my balance. Walking, working with the dogs, keeping pigs and sheep and ponies and even working in the garden, even a lot of the pleasure of working in the kitchen has gone as a result of the permanent back pain I live with. So I need to try and bring my weight back to a place where I can put those things back in my life and find the balance, because right now, today, this reality is I couldn't physically do most of the things I dream about building my life around. I need to do that without making daily workouts and being at constant war with and in fear of food. I need to NOT think about food and weight and work this into a new habit. This is possible. I do know this. I know this because I have done it before. (Nov '04 to Jun '06 - when other sudden lifestyle changes up-ended my carefully built 'habits').
This isn't going to be easy. It's going to mean walking away from my art - I cannot cook and indulge in the kitchen creativity and make this work. (hush now all you who want to tell me I can, I know where my boundaries are, and I can't). This won't be, can't be, a permanent thing, I do need my art, I need my studio, and my painting with flavours and colours and textures - but I need to swing the pendulum the other way for a while to find the balance. So, I'm willing to make this commitment to myself for a year, it should work, will I end up a 135lb 26 yr old at the end of it? Nope, but then that's not what I'm expecting, I'm just wanting, needing, expecting, to reach a place in my life where I'm functional again, to reduce my chronic pain to a place where I can DO the things I want and need to do, to find the balance again. I was good with it in '06, I can be good with it again.
And because emotionally, this is a tough place for me, I am embarrassed, I am already feeling the loss. I am already very clear about what I need and must do, I'd really rather not a lot of 'rah rah hip hooray I know you can do this Vicky!' cheering sections, there's not much to cheer about here, I really don't need pep talks or advice books or any of that. It's the first step on a long hard road that by virtue of it's very nature is intensely personal and I will walk it alone.
Just wish me well on the journey and I hope I find my way back.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
We are, less adept, at putting a plan into action. That kind of makes us daydreamers.
It's made for a bit of inner turmoil, of that 'ok, we did the big change to get what we wanted, how come we don't have what we want?' moments. There's an inner dissatisfaction with our lives at the moment. Nothing is really *wrong*, it's just not quite *right* yet. Some of that is our own fault, some of that is just a function of where we are in our lives, and some of it is a function of resources, some of it is just a function of "christ it's been a long winter". "The reality is never the same as the dream. Always."
However, one's life is always about the choices we make, if you're not happy, make different choices. At the moment there aren't a lot of choices we can make. Except day by day doing what one can.
Ok that was a long introduction to something that isn't easy for me to talk about - has never been easy to talk about.
I am fat.
Yeah no revelations there to anyone who knows me. It's always a difficult and touchy subject for me to talk about. On the one hand there's this whole body image self esteem thing that no matter how much as a woman you try to outgrow and distance yourself from. Still it's always there, even if just a tiny seed. Non of us like to say we're fat. Self acceptance is a wonderful thing, and *mostly* I have that. I recall reading someone's tag line somewhere that 'being fat is hard, being slim is hard, choose your hard" or something like that. I realized that I could give up most of the foods I loved, the cooking and the creating, the artistry I love, and devote hours a day to exercise and working out and I could be thin. I know a lot of people who love the physicality of their daily work outs and wouldn't be without it, who love running and marathons and the like. That's not me. It's never been me, running, weight lifting, aerobics, sports - it's never been me. I am not graceful, or athletic. I don't want to make running my hobby. My hobbies are writing and reading and researching and designing and cooking. That's what I do. That is my love and my joy. And I'm perfectly OK with that. Still this reality is not what I dreamed.
Admission: I am over 300 lbs. How much over I couldn't tell you exactly this moment. For the moment that's not the important part. The important part is that my weight is becoming disabling. That has been my fear over the years. It wasn't easy that I was no longer comfortable with cameras and mirrors, but I could live with avoiding those. I can't live with the disabling parts. Honestly it doesn't happen that you wake up one morning and suddenly you're disabled. It creeps up on you with each pound. Things get harder and harder and harder, and you begin to realize more and more you can no longer do things you could do before. This reality is not what I dreamed.
I've battled with my weight most of my life. I don't really need a lot of advice on how, or what I should do, I don't need another weight loss/exercise advice book for my birthday. My weight and I are on intensely initimate terms, I know it well. I know what my choices are. So that isn't really what this is about.
Part of the life choices of making the big move from suburban living to rural living was that there would be gardening work and farm work and walking and working with the dogs and cycling into the village and all of those things would lead me into a more active lifestyle and thus better able to balance the other more sedentary pursuits and finding a more passive balance in this battle. That was the dream. When we were living suburban and I was working and taking a more active approach to tackling my weight issues - it was a battle. It was an hour a day on a machine, it was constant notebooks and notes about how much of what I was eating and an hour a day of chronicling it counting and measuring and calculating the calorie carb and fat reduction in rebuilding a cake recipe and how much of that was 'allowed'. I mean really - losing weight became pretty much my only hobby, and it wasn't all that successful. I really don't want to put myself in a place again where I'm at war with food - I can't, I won't.
So I'm at a place of making some tough choices. I need to change my hard - for a while at least. The simple fact is that my current weight has now interfered with my other life choices, it's limiting my abilities to do the other things I wanted to do, that were supposed to help keep my balance. Walking, working with the dogs, keeping pigs and sheep and ponies and even working in the garden, even a lot of the pleasure of working in the kitchen has gone as a result of the permanent back pain I live with. So I need to try and bring my weight back to a place where I can put those things back in my life and find the balance, because right now, today, this reality is I couldn't physically do most of the things I dream about building my life around. I need to do that without making daily workouts and being at constant war with and in fear of food. I need to NOT think about food and weight and work this into a new habit. This is possible. I do know this. I know this because I have done it before. (Nov '04 to Jun '06 - when other sudden lifestyle changes up-ended my carefully built 'habits').
This isn't going to be easy. It's going to mean walking away from my art - I cannot cook and indulge in the kitchen creativity and make this work. (hush now all you who want to tell me I can, I know where my boundaries are, and I can't). This won't be, can't be, a permanent thing, I do need my art, I need my studio, and my painting with flavours and colours and textures - but I need to swing the pendulum the other way for a while to find the balance. So, I'm willing to make this commitment to myself for a year, it should work, will I end up a 135lb 26 yr old at the end of it? Nope, but then that's not what I'm expecting, I'm just wanting, needing, expecting, to reach a place in my life where I'm functional again, to reduce my chronic pain to a place where I can DO the things I want and need to do, to find the balance again. I was good with it in '06, I can be good with it again.
And because emotionally, this is a tough place for me, I am embarrassed, I am already feeling the loss. I am already very clear about what I need and must do, I'd really rather not a lot of 'rah rah hip hooray I know you can do this Vicky!' cheering sections, there's not much to cheer about here, I really don't need pep talks or advice books or any of that. It's the first step on a long hard road that by virtue of it's very nature is intensely personal and I will walk it alone.
Just wish me well on the journey and I hope I find my way back.
Originally posted to: The Plan® comment there or here
