An Update and Being the Same Me

The experiment is going pretty well. The first week I gained a pound and a half, the second week I stayed the same, and the third week I lost two pounds. More importantly, I'm entirely angst free. It's really nice not to be even a tiny bit stressed about my food choices. I would bet that I'm eating pretty close to the same stuff in the same amounts as I was when I was tracking. Go figure.

Saturday I'm going to visit friends and family in California. Most of them I haven't seen in over a year, which means they haven't seen me in over a year. As it is commonly spoken and written, most people would be really excited and happy anticipating the unveiling of a body 73 pounds thinner. I hear I am supposed to relish the compliments and attention and be proud of what I've achieved and whatnot. I'm actually pretty anxious about it. I haven't told anyone I'm losing weight. It's not a secret, exactly, but I feel weird about it. I have such conflicted feelings about the concept of dieting and about involving myself in the diet industry, so I don't love talking about that. I also hate how the whole world seems to be having a constant conversation about having lost weight, wanting to lose weight, regretting cookies, wanting donuts, wishing they had time to exercise, hating exercise, being virtuous for eating salad and bad for skipping the gym. I don't want to engage in that conversation and I don't know how to casually tell my father or my childhood friends that I've been losing weight for the last 13 months and that they should expect me to look pretty different. So then when they see me they'll be shocked, which just draws more attention that I don't want. I don't want to talk to everyone I see about how I lost weight or even to accept compliments if they're giving them. Each of them will only have that conversation once, but I'm having it all the time with strangers as well as friends. It makes me tired.

A few weeks ago I had lunch with an old, dear friend who is local, but whom I don't see often. I'm sure she noticed that I've lost weight -- I am aware that I look pretty wildly different, though it makes me uncomfortable -- but she managed to show no sign of it. She treated me exactly as she always has. We ate together, we took a walk, we had a conversation about our gym memberships and she just treated me like me. It was deeply comforting. That's what I want from everyone, really. I don't think my weight loss should be interesting to anyone but me. I care about losing weight. I think about what I'm eating. I want to be thinner, to look better, to buy cuter clothes. All of that is a big deal to me, but I don't want it to be a big deal to anyone else. I just want them to be with me exactly as they've always been. I wish I could send a memo ahead of me explaining that...

An Anniversary and an Experiment

So as of last week, I've been doing Weight Watchers for a year. I've lost about 70 pounds, which is nice, and in an extremely unlikely event, have become a fitness nut, which is thrilling.

But I've been struggling lately. As much as I believe it's unhealthy for me to worry about food, to feel guilty about overeating, I still do. It's a stressful situation. I can tell myself that it's okay to eat what I want, that I'll still be working out, that I'll be eating healthier things later, that it's not the end of the world if I gain a pound, but I can't really turn off the other voice. The one who says I'm sabotaging my weight loss efforts when I eat cookies, that I'm still fat and look horrible, that I should be making healthier food choices.

I've always had only two rules for myself. One was that I would record my Weight Watchers points as accurately as I could. Always. It was okay to eat whatever I wanted in whatever quantity I wanted, but I had to record it. For most of the last twelve months, that has been really helpful. I actually find it comforting to write down a number after I overeat, even if the number is huge. It's just a number. I start over with daily points the next day and with weekly points the next week. I earn more points every time I work out. I haven't killed any puppies, I just ate a lot of points. No one cares but me.

Only for some reason, over the last few weeks, it's been causing a lot of anxiety. I hate that I sometimes debate over a breakfast that's one or two points higher than another or over whether or not to eat a piece of fruit because I'm thinking about how many points I have left. How ridiculous is that? Deep down, I don't believe it's ever a bad idea to eat a bunch of grapes or a bowl of oatmeal with peanut butter.


My other rule is No Angst. So when recording points, worrying about points, started to cause me angst, I had to decide which was a bigger rule. I decided No Angst. So as an experiment, I'm not recording or thinking about points. My goal is to do everything pretty much the same except without the anxiety. My exercise routine will be the same because it makes me happy, I will still go to Weight Watchers meetings and get weighed and will still weigh myself at home. I will keep eating basically as I've been eating, except without recording anything. I'm going to see what happens for about a month. If I find that I'm steadily gaining weight, I'll reassess. If my weight stays the same, I'm okay with that for now. If I lose weight, even if it's more slowly than I have been, I'll be thrilled. It's been almost a week so far and I am feeling optimistic about it. I am definitely less anxious around food and don't think I'm eating any more than I was before. I've lost a pound. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Voices in my Head

That said, regarding the bacon, I have been indulging in not so healthy foods a lot this week. I ate too many cookies on Monday (Trader Joe's Peppermint Joe's O's, which are entirely irresistible.) On Tuesday I ate pizza for dinner and gingerbread with whipped cream for dessert. Wednesday I ate leftover pizza for lunch and some cookies and later lasagna and all sorts of other delicious heavy things at a dinner party. It's funny to listen to my internal monologue while making decisions about what to eat. A voice says to make healthier choices and then another says to go ahead and eat what I want because thus far, that has worked out pretty well for me, has left me feeling indulged, not deprived, and then allows me to go back to healthy stuff. The first voice comes back then to say perhaps I should feel badly about what I've eaten and perhaps I should make extra healthy choices now, since yesterday didn't go so well. Voice two tells me that kind of thinking leads to feelings of obligation and guilt and that doesn't work for me. It tells me to eat bacon for breakfast because that's actually a good way to start the year. It tells me that I am happy in the grand scheme of things and that I am looking forward to my next workout. It tells me that the brunch I'm going to in a little while will offer more treats and that it will be just fine for me to eat them because after that, life goes back to normal and I'll be buying and cooking my own food and most of it will be delicious and healthy.

I love the second voice and I wish I could live without the first. I'm grateful to have come to a place that allows me to see that the first voice is unhealthy. I used to believe that the first voice was Right. I believed it had my best interest at heart and that by not listening to it, I was sabotaging myself. I know now not to listen to it, but I don't know how to make it go away. I wish I could recognize that I'm eating a lot of junk this week and truly, purely not worry about it. For now I will have to at least embrace my desire not to worry about it.

The No Angst Policy

I spent a good part of this morning trying to decide whether or not to go back to that gym class today. I have felt a lot better about it after talking to my trainer who assured me that it's a fucking hard class and most people who come once don't come back and that he knows I don't stop to rest because I'm lazy. I felt all validated and encouraged. And then I got a cold early in the week and thought, well, I may be well enough to work out by Saturday, but I certainly won't be up for that class. Which was a great, no angst excuse. Then the cold really never got that bad and I was pretty much entirely well by yesterday. So I had to make a decision. I went back and forth.

Running would be good.
Maybe I would even be up for a workout as hard as class, but did I really feel like being around other people?
But cross-training is really important.
But I do cross-train. In this very week there has been weight-lifting, running, and swimming -- I'm not in a rut.
But if I don't go today, maybe it'll be easier for me to chicken out of going other days.
Etc...

And then I remembered a philosophy I adhere to at work.

I'm a children's librarian and while we have plenty of rules and thou-shalt-nots in my library, we also have what we call The No Tears Policy. If a small child is panicking about something -- wants a prize she hasn't earned, absolutely must borrow this book even though he has fines -- we go ahead and break rules to avoid tears. Give her the prize, let him check out the book. No Tears is a priority, and I believe in that.

I remembered, after all my deliberating this morning, that I have a No Tears Policy for myself -- or more accurately, No Angst. That's what has kept me sane about all the decisions that affect my body. No Angst over whether or not to eat a second cupcake. No Angst over whether or not I lost weight this week. No Angst over when or how or how much I work out. And I felt so relieved. I put on my workout clothes, went to the gym, waved at my trainer, put my headphones in and ran on the treadmill for 45 minutes all by myself. I stretched for a long time afterward because stretching felt good. Plenty of workout, zero angst. Maybe I'll feel like class next week or the week after, but deciding against it today felt like the right decision.

A couple of you commented last week with similar stories of gym class fear. I hope you can get past the fear if you want to. I hope that if you want to practice yoga or go to your trainer's class even though everyone else in it appears to be in better shape than you, you manage to suck it up and do it and reap the benefits. But I hope that if you decide the angst involved isn't worth it, that you go do something else that makes you happy without feeling like that class is something you should do. You should do what works for you. We all deserve to exercise happy.