Dear Diet Blog,
You are so easy to ignore. Or maybe it's that I am unfaithful to you. That's probably closer to the truth. I come here, dump out my thoughts and wander off into the kitchen sunset and promptly ignore you for a week.
It's not that I intend to ignore you, but intentions are nothing, really, without action. And my actions lately have been scattered and half-hearted and distracted. I mean to eat a good breakfast, a healthy bowl of oatmeal, and then I decide instead to sleep in and spend the time before I start work rushing around . . . and grabbing something unhealthy to eat while sitting at my desk.
I make promises to myself that I don't keep. Maybe I don't even intend to keep them. For instance, tonight I'm giving myself the "no sugar" pep-talk (while I eat Oreos with orange filling) and then I thought about how after my daughter's soccer game two weeks ago we went to Dairy Queen and that Pumpkin-Pie Blizzard was so good and maybe we could go again on Saturday--HEY WAIT, I JUST SAID NO SUGAR!
I want conflicting things. I want to eat cookies to entertain and soothe myself but I want to fit into smaller clothes. I want to order fast food but I want to shrink my belly. I want to sleep but I want to exercise and be fit. I am ridiculous. I know it.
If I could have one good solid week of reasonable behavior--healthy diet, moderate exercise--I know that I'd see results. I'd have incentive to continue on. I'd have hope. Then I could do it another week and before you know it, I would be wearing a smaller size.
And over and over again I keep sabotaging myself and doing stupid things.
Honestly, I hate myself for that even while I know that hating myself is pointless. Also? Even while I hate myself I understand that I am the same person whether I am chubby or fit and that the only person who really cares about my double-chin is me.
I've also come to realize that along with my weight loss three years ago came a lot of smug pride. I thought I had it all figured out and couldn't understand why everyone didn't do what I was doing. And now even I can't do what I was doing. And I am humbled. Humiliated, really, only can you be humiliated if you are the only person deeply invested in your own feelings? Probably not.
Please understand that I don't really hate myself. I really hate being fat, though and I hate that I am conspiring with myself to stay this way. Maybe I like it on some level, as horrifying as that thought may be.
Also? Someone will send me an email and tell me to stop the angst and to stop analyzing myself and yes, that's probably good advice. I just need to stop talking and start doing.
Though if I stop talking, this blog will be mighty quiet. Ha ha.
Okay, well, that's where I am tonight. I am trying to pep-talk myself into making good choices so I don't end up with diabetes and heart disease and gigantic pants with elastic waists.