Friday, February 3, 2012

Gym Snark


Hello All. The weight loss is sort of at a standstill. I can say this much – carb-free is nearly impossible. Even for only 17 days. Not totally impossible, but close. I’ve pretty much fallen off the wagon yet again (shocker, right?). 

Our trip to Disney is in about a week and I know trying to diet while on vacation is just stupid. I know, I know, just another excuse to put off the inevitable. But really, who diets while they are on vacation? Seriously? The plan is to go 17DD hard core when we return. Tier 2 of the plan is to try and not gain back the 9 lbs I’ve lost between now and then. 

It seems for me to be a constant struggle between wanting to be thin again and wanting to enjoy life. Yeah, yeah, yeah…”you can enjoy so many things about life without eating things that are bad for you”. Shut up. Seriously. Shut the hell up. If I am going to the movies and want to have popcorn or nachos and I enjoy that about the movies then so be it. It’s not fair for people to say what sort of things you should be allowed to enjoy in life anymore than it is for a heavier person to try and get a health nut to eat those things. But alas, enjoying those things has consequences. I know that much. So for now, I am trying to watch what I eat to an extent (no specific diet plan – the vacation, remember?) and enjoy those things in moderation. By moderation, I don’t mean only eating half my nachos – I paid practically a semester’s worth of college tuition for them so I am going to eat every last crumb. By moderation I just mean that I won’t eat them (or things like them) every day. 

I know it’s not where I should be in all this, but it’s a step in the right direction at least. I also know that eating this way will make me lose approximately 5 pounds a year if I’m lucky. I know that I am going to have to hard core diet to lose the now 41 pounds (yay! It’s no longer 50!) I need to lose. My hope is that once I lose the weight I will be able to just be conscious of what I eat and maintain it. Is that too much to ask, Mother Nature? 

In the meantime I have been working out like a maniac! I’m still doing the New Rules of Lifting for Women regiment with cardio added in a few times a week. I’m very sore pretty much all the time, but I’m going to take that as a sign that something is happening. My husband swears that he sees a difference in my thighs – not so much the size of them but that they are less flabby (my words, not his….he knows better). I don’t see it yet, but then again I’m trying not to get too hung up on “results” with this like I do with eating and the scale. I know I feel good when I work out and I don’t mind it as much as I used to. 

It’s amazing how on a rainy afternoon you just don’t feel like driving all the way to Baton Rouge to go to the gym but then your kids start to get fussy and you are out that door in a flash. I am hoping to start bringing the twins back to the gym nursery again after our trip. That means working out in the mornings, which I prefer. Hopefully all the skinnys at the gym will stay home with their sick kids so mine don’t catch illness there. 

I shouldn’t hate on the skinnys – I hope to be one someday. It’s just hard watching them at the gym all chatty while they are running the track. Let me tell you: there is NO speed above “leisurely walk” where I can chat with a buddy while jogging. I don’t have breath to spare to talk. I barely have enough breath not to fall out on the floor. Same with the elliptical machine or anything else for that matter. My attitude is that when doing cardio, if you can still hold a conversation then you aren’t doing it right. (Visually I see them and figure they must be doing something right if they look like that and I look like this, but I guess the ability to work out at a leisurely pace is a privilege earned by the thin.) Meanwhile I just give them the stink-eye as the sweat literally pours off my fat ass. It’s the price to pay, I suppose. Maybe one day I can turn in my baggy t-shirt for a cutesy little matching set of lycra gym clothes and hang out with my buddies at the gym and talk about how fabulous we all are that we are all here and health-conscious. 

“Oh, you know me, Barbie! I never miss a day at the gym! I mean, little Timmy has a highly contagious, deadly strain of Ebola virus, but I brought him to the nursery anyway! I’m only hurting him if I don’t stay at my healthiest!!”

“Oh, of course, Muffy! We must keep our bodies in perfect condition so our much older husbands continue to financially support us and we can be the trophy wives we promised to be! Did you know I am 45? Thanks to the surgeon I don’t look a day over 23!”

“Oh, Barbie, don’t you just love my new Nike exercise clothes? They are all hot pink and size XXS! I even got the matching sports bra so if I get too hot I can just work out in that!”

So yeah, I’m a little mean-spirited when it comes to this. In all honesty I have about a hundred of these imagined conversations I play in my head. It’s hard to be one of the bigger girls at the gym. It’s hard not to feel like everyone’s looking at you funny. Who am I to judge? But it’s easier to think mean thoughts in my head about others when I’m already thinking mean thoughts in my head about myself. The things I imagine them thinking about me are really just the projections of what I think of myself. Those skinnys could be just like me but only on the other side of the struggle. Or I could be right and they could be Muffys and Barbies. Sometimes, though, there are the nose-in-the-air types who are rolling their eyes because you are on the machine they want. For those, I have one thing to say: I may be fat, but you’re old. I can get skinny. Do the math. 

Oh well….what’s a good workout without a little snark.

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