Sometimes weight loss is a waiting game.
Each week, as I look at what I could improve and what I ought to make a weekly goal, it’s become a struggle to find something to change. Sugar free? Check. Lots of vegetables? Check. Protein? Check. Lots of water? Check. Exercise? Check. I’m already doing it and I’m doing it right.
What’s there to change? What is there to add?
I could make myself work harder at the gym but that would only make me want to run away and probably push myself too hard like I have in the past. That usually ends in me being too utterly exhausted to do any of the things I’m supposed to do in daily life. I’m easing in on purpose.
Yeah, I can add in some green tea, maybe try some new vegetables and recipes, but I’m already doing the right things. There just isn’t that much to add or change. My weekly goals might as well look like this, “keep doing the same thing. Repeat.”
Um… boring.
I’m at that place that the movies usually fast forward through. The part where you consistently repeat doing the same things is just not that interesting but, still, it’s incredibly important.
That’s kind of where everything in my life is right now. I’m working, being consistent, and waiting for the results to show.
And I’m antsy as hell.
When’s the payoff?
When’s the excitement?
When do I get to post progress pictures, buy new sizes, feel smug about losing more weight than other bloggers, and complain about my loose skin instead of my fat? Clearly this is what it’s all about!
The monotony and waiting can be maddening. I’ve never been the patient type. I like action. I like movement.
You’d think that given how busy I am, I’d be content to let the changes happen as I live life. Apparently I’m more of a brat than that. Impatience and discontent has settled on me like dust and I have an almost irresistible urge to sweep it away with action of some sort… anything!
But there’s no action to be taken. It really is a waiting game. It’s a mental battle, at this point, much more than it is a physical one because I have no trouble not touching the proverbial cookie jar.
The only thing I could improve upon is sleep. There you’ve got me. That’s something I’ve really got to figure out but it’s still not something that requires much action during the day. That requires calming my antsy mind and inaction, which is exactly what’s getting to me already.
Clearly I’m going to go crazy.
Again.
It probably doesn’t help that I’m still working on undoing the regain from the early months of my recovery. It makes me feel very “been there, done that” about every pound and inch lost. I don’t feel like I get to be excited yet about looking different again because in the back of my mind I think I’ve already looked like this once and it’s nothing new.
The thing is, that’s true… and it isn’t. When I weighed this much last year I didn’t look how I do now because I wasn’t as holistically healthy as I am now. First I was so sick and again that I thought I was dying and having visions of Cheesus, then I was fighting just to get by while keeping the secret of what happened to me, all the while, I was focusing on weight loss rather than health.
This year is all about weight loss in the context of health and recovery. It is a new thing and it’s better.
Maybe to throw off the impatience of “getting there” I need to find a sub-goal to focus on in the meantime, something to try to achieve before I hit new territory… a race of achievements.
In my head I totally just heard Mr. Bean’s voice from Rat Race going, “Ooh, a race! I hope I win.”
So, you know what? Let’s make it a real race!
My efforts to actually run a race last year ended in miserable failure so it just feels perfect to do it right this year and succeed in what I couldn’t do before. I’ve just signed up for the SARVA 5K Run/Walk on April 29th. SARVA is a sexual assault awareness advocacy group so it’s kind of perfect.
Just the thought of this has me excited again. It feels amazing to have a mission for this time period besides undoing the damage.
Can I run 5K without stopping before I get back down to 218.4lbs? That’s the challenge, that’s the race.
I’m giddy.
