Wasting Away

Today was a day that took me right back to middle school. With one little comment, which actually turned out to be a backhanded compliment my co-worker turned me into the skinny, flat-chested girl of 1988. I am sure she thought that she was being nice when she said, “my goodness, you are going to waste away. I can’t believe how skinny you got.” Of course I laughed it off and said, no I’m not that skinny. Then she pushed it even farther when she berated me into standing up from my desk so my male co-worker could agree with her that I had lost a great deal of weight and that they should both be worried about me.

Thankfully, at the ripe old age of 32, I didn’t let this effect me for more than 30 minutes, but still that 30 minutes was reminscent and unpleasant to say the least. Amazing isn’t it that as females, we can be too fat, too skinny, too smart, too stupid.  Really too anything is enough for someone to feel they have the right to point your too whatever it may be. The more I think about it the more pissed off I get because too is such a subjective thing. Who is she or he or whoever to tell me or even think that I am too anything?? While this angers me, what really pisses me off is that I let it effect me. When I looked into the mirror this morning, I thought I looked great.  I felt great, I was looking thin and my hair was cute. I had a spring in my step. Then for 30 minutes I sat and felt selfconscious.

Then after thinking about it for another 60 minutes I felt that I surely deserved this becasue I too have judged others.  Reflecting, I think noone deserves to be made to feel less than they are. I deserve no less than to feel pretty all day if I damn well feel like it.

Cheesecake

Cheesecake has to be okay when the director takes you out to lunch for
your birthday right?  It has to be okay enough to not give yourself a
negative goal point right?  Did I mention it was a really expensive
lunch and that the dessert course was included in the price?  It would
have been rude not to eat it right?  Did I mention that I only ate ½ of
it and that it was covered in blackberries? I might have also forgot
that the first course had vegetables.  Did I mention that the restaurant
was so nice that I couldn’t count on one hand how many different people
served me? Maybe I did mention that I left something on the plate during
each of the courses before the cheesecake or maybe I didn’t but that is
also important to note. Also important is that everyone else at the
table cleared their plate after each course. Oh, wait I might have also
forgot to mention that I had to walk 3 blocks to lunch and 3 blocks back
and I didn’t give myself any exercise points.

So in conclusion, the cheesecake was a must right? Well, anyway that is
how I am going to look at.  You can’t look a cheesecake birthday well
wisher in the mouth.

Too Big Pants

Motivator, cause of self-sabotage, or just really good excuse to be lazy for a while. I’m going to have to to with the latter. One (including me) would hope that it would be the first in the list, but for some reason it isn’t. I don’t feel like it is the second because I know what it is like to be skinny. When I think about and envision myself it is always as a skinny person.  I guess the too big pants are just an excuse to keep my ass from having to go to the gym. In an earlier post I wrote about always looking for a reason to stay away from the gym.  The too big pants are nothing more than that.

The pants give me an excuse to do nothing because I liked myself when the pants fit, so I can be really happy right now because they are a whole size too big. This means that I have a least a month before the pants fit again even if I don’t go to the gym at all.  Wowee a whole month without the gym is a lot of nap time.  The funny thing is that I always feel much better before the nap or right as I am laying down than I do after I get up and realize that I get no points for naps and that I could have dragged my ass to the gym.

The solution: remember the feeling after the gym is waaayyyy better than the feeling after the nap.  Oh and stop wearing the too big pants and go to the too tight pants.

Testosterone

I am sure there is too much of it coursing through my veins. I have always wondered if I had an abnormal amount.  If you go by the pointer and ring finger test, I definitely do.  If you think about my attraction to men and not women, I don’t.  If you think about my love of a good argument and no fear of confrontation, I do.  If you think about my love for pink, especially shoes in pink, sometimes even sparkly. If you think about my love of hockey and football, I definitely do.  If you think about my love of skirts and heels, I don’t. If you think about my lot of almost fights at aforementioned sporting events, i for surely do, but then there is my gift for gab, which puts me squarely in the just right amount of testosterone column.

While all of the above are important criteria to be considered, it is my most recent admittance that I hate the doctor.  I hate the dentist, but I have always known that.  I never before hated the doctor or the optometrist, but as of late, I just see it as a colossal waste of time and sheer annoyance.  Admittely there is a little fear of what instructions I will be give or what pain will be inflicted, but more than anything I just find it to be a huge pain in the ass. Of course, I always force myself to do what I know to be best, but sometimes I have to reward myself with ice cream.

In conclusion, obviously too much testosterone. As a post script, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sugar as a Reward or a Condolence?

Although that appears as an either or question, it really is more of a quandry to myself about why I feel like sugar should be either of those things.  Really, if I have had a great day then I feel like I should celebrate with baked goods. A horrible day that requires escape calls for ice cream.  If it were alcohol I were talking about here instead of sugar people would worry about “my problem”  since it isn’t alcohol with which I would like to reward or console myself with and the american public is just as addicted to sugar as I am noone worries about it.

Really it doesn’t help when you have specials at place like Giffords on Monday for Sundaes for 3.99.  I can’t help but to believe that this is because of the horrendous day that is Monday. So far I have been able to resist mainly because if I go to the gym after work I don’t usually have any desire to follow up with the 400 calories that I just burnt off.  I know I will have to tread lightly if there is a reason I can’t attend the gym on a Monday sometime.

But really if sugar isn’t a reward or a condolence and if I shouldn’t respond to my cravings then is there really a time when I should be eating it.  I guess for the pure joy of it.  How fair is it that I have to moderate my joy?? It really feels unfair.  If there was one thing that should be left unmoderated it should be joy!

The Comparison Continues

I really do try not to be judgmental. Not too hard, but when I catch myself, I try to remind myself of the golden rule mom always prided herself on teaching.

 I know one reason I am so concerned with people judging or heaven forbid talking about me is because I am so great at doing it myself. I don’t ever condemn anyone. Well almost never, sometimes usually in the case of spandex it feels necessary. Usually I just have a running commentary in my head about how others are dressed, or how they speak, or how they walk, or how.. and on and on. I try not to think any less of them, but I am sure that I am.

On a more positive note and in an effort to be totally honest, I don’t always find myself better dressed or cuter or smarter than those around. There are plenty of times when I look at someone else and am quite appreciative of what they have to offer.  Sidenote: This does not include men in madras shorts.  What’s with those things?  They are so not a neutral, but I digress. Now on to the proclamation.

Eckhart taught me that it isn’t the real me that is making these comments.  It is my ego who is trying to make itself feel better than everyone else. I must admit that I like this idea, but I have this niggling feeling that this might be letting me off too easy.  While I know that the real me is not my cognitive self.  It is my cognitive self that must take responsibility for ending the constant stream of negativity about myself and everyone else. Quite possibly if I can refrain from judging everyone else, maybe I will worry less about what everyone else thinks about me.  Then maybe I will be more likely to say yes to requests and doing what I really want rather than declining for the simple reason that I may not be or look perfect doing it. Wow! there  is that word again.  For next time ruminations  on how my perfectionism feeds the little judge in me.

the gym high

ooh my how i love the gym high.  Nothing makes me feel better than when I leave the gym all sweaty and exhausted.  I don’t even mind all the stares i get for riding the metro home and walking through the golden triangle in my gym clothes.  I mean at least I slather on some deodorant before I leave the locker room.  I can’t help it if my face still looks like a tomato for 60 minutes following my workout.

So keeping this all in mind I wonder and I ask myself, unless somebody else wants to offer up an opinion.  I ask myself, why am I constantly on the lookout for an excuse to skip the gym.  I mean I will use anything. Rain makes my shoes too wet to run on the treadmill.  I forgot my sports bra.  I forgot other personal products necessary.  I need to rush home to an appointment.  Really, anything is a great excuse to skip the gym and take a nap. Why is that I can’t remember the gym high that I love so much when I am contemplating not going to the gym?  How can I do a better job of reminding myself of the feeling when I am weighing the excuses.

On a good note,  today I made the gym.  Tomorrow the plan is to make the gym that is unless, something unexpected and/or crazy happens that forces me to skip it.

My Almost Skinny Jeans

I want to preface this by saying that I haven’t weighed myself in over 2 months.  I just keep punching in 145 on the treadmill, which by the way is my highest weight ever.  Really, the only reason I have weighed myself in the last 6 months is so I would have something to put into the treadmill to get a real count of my calorie burn. I don’t put a lot of stock in the numbers.  i put way more stock in how i feel, and the most weight I put is on the way my pants fit. 

Now with the preface out of the way, let me shout from the rooftops that pants that were under the bed.  Way under the bed because they depressed me to see in the closet not being worn in months, these pants the pants that tired their best to hold their seams together while I crammed my ass into them 4 months ago. These pants, these pants FIT!!!  They fit.  Just when I thought I was going to need to buy some in between pants. I thought well maybe just for giggles I would try on a pair of old pants. 

Lo and behold when I dragged them out from under the bed. They fit.  Well not all of them but two pair of them fit. They fit well enough that I can wear them without feeling like a jimmy dean.  It is only fair to mention that I still have 2 pair that don’t fit.  One pair will hopefully fit in 2 more months and then the last pair, the really skinny pair they won’t fit for four more months.  But like a good friend once told me. Shopping is about hope and there is nothing more hopeful that shopping under the bed for clothes that once fit.  Free Hope.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

I’m Sugarfree

or at least I should be.  This whole no soda, limited sugar thing is great for the waist line.  I have already dropped a pant size and everything that was too tight before seems to be just right again.  I also have more energy when I eat a decent breakfast instead of the used to be frapp and danish.  I will admit the first few weeks were insane!  The headaches were irritating but manageable but the mood swings.  Well, just be glad that you don’t live with me or have to answer my phone calls six or eight times a day while you are supposedly trying to do some work.   Once I finally got over the headaches and mood swings, things were great for a while.  I really didn’t have any cravings for mt. dew. Something that I wasn’t sure was ever possible. I have not totally given up sugar but where I was used to eating it at least two or three times a day, now it is more like a few times a week.  Even this I don’t really miss.  I am sure it would be much worse if I never allowed myself the occasional giffords toasted coconut, hot fudge, sundae or a warm brownie.

Things were great right up until this week.  The week that the monstrous paper is due.  The week that I knew would be hell if I didn’t get the paper finished before last week, but that knowledge didn’t keep me from putting the paper off until Monday of this week.  I know Monday to Friday seems like a long time, but when you have perfectionist and control issues like I do and writing 10 drafts is the only way to get through this, it isn’t really enough time.  So I am sure you can sense where this was going.  In my quest to complete the paper, all things pale in comparison to its importance, especially the garnering of points for these stupid hockey tickets; of which is partly to blame for the lack of work on the paper in the previous three week.  DAMN HUET!!! DAMN HIM!!! and whle we are at it , damn mikey and brooksie, and even the serge for not putting pen to paper weeks ago.  Of course they didn’t force me to read the blogs and watch the tsn signing tracker endlessly, but it sure felt like some unseen force was making me do it.  I certainly wouldn’t go that crazy all by myself.  I like to think of those few weeks as my marlena-possession phase.  She came around and so did I.  But I digress, back to this week.  I needed caffeine to get through the paper.  Well, not really cause I wasn’t really all that tired, just not motivated.  I know, I will reward myself early for working on the paper by buying starbucks or a mountain dew each day that I plan to work on it.  The funny thing about this plan is that it didn’t really work.  I was no more motivated after ingesting all the sugar than I was before.  All it really did was make it more difficult to stay in my seat, which makes working on a paper even harder. Then the worst of it was the damn sugar headache.  i don’t remember ever having a headache from too much sugar, but yep, that is certainly what it was.  How do I know, because the only thing I ate all day was sugar and it wasn’t one of my normal stress headaches.

All of this to say, that as of tomorrow, I am again sugar free.  And just to prove that I can jump right back on the horse, to the gym my friend, to the gym.

People as mirrors, scary stuff

Gary Zukav said it. I believed it.  I knew it to be true. I ignored it.  It has since started presenting its ugly little self to me again.  What I notice in others is obvious in me as well.  Being the center of attention a huge pet peeve of mine. Interrupting others constantly to try to beat them to the punch of their story or even better to one up the story.  Irritation if not the one to make the decisions.  Pointing out others faults, whether it be style, character, intelligence or judgement. All of these things drive me crazy, therefore I must present them to others as a part of my ego. 

With that said, the question remains.  I believe it again. I know it to be true again, but will I choose to ignore it or confront myself when I notice it. Will I continue to complain about others and then be bothered when I hear others doing it? Will I continue to be irritated by those close to me when they exhibit these traits or will I be grateful to them for showing me how I appears to others.