Month #11

The 11th marked the 11th month of my journaling on AOL.  I went back to the very first few entries early this morning while I was trying to stay awake, there was a lot more energy back in the beginning.

To be honest I've just been going through the motions since about the onset of summer.  And recently I've been trying to play catch-up.  I notice myself considering stuff that normally I would have balked at.  We're talking the pills, the equipment, the diets - all the stuff I used to regard with such scorn because I truly feel the diet industry feeds off of the desperation of an increasingly obese nation.

And what's worse I believe that the diet industry actually keeps their clients obese to keep their clientele.  Back when I was about 21 I used to work at Burger King, and our franchise had a maitenance guy who used to drive me UP a tree.  He'd always fix stuff halfway so that he always had to come back and spend hours and hours chewing the fat with the managers.  Everything was constantly breaking down.  The reason it bugged me was because the things that were breaking down got in the way of our business - and fast food work is cumbersome enough as it is.

I regard the diet industry in much the same way.  That's why I despise fad diets so badly.  The most dangerous thing we face is yo yo dieting, and crash diets, fad diets and unrealistic eating patterns "just to get skinny" keep us losing and gaining, losing and gaining. 

Yet here I am, succumbing to the propoganda.  It's insane.  It hit me today while I was doing my Pilates that I don't need all that "magical" stuff.  Much like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I have always had what it takes to lose weight right within me.  I don't have to spend $50 for some pills to do it for me. 

It just takes me doing what I know needs to be done.  When we went to the mall earlier and were browsing in Spencer Gifts, they had a book called the Ultimate Diet Breakthrough - which had the comprehensive answer to finally lose weight forever.  You open the book and on every single page there were the same two words:  Eat less.

It hit me - that isn't the answer.  On Dateline NBC they're doing a weight loss segment on several high school classmates preparing for a reunion.  Of the 5, the one who hasn't been watching what he ate and concentrating on exercise has lost the least, and the one who watches what she eats and exercises lost the most.  The fad diet, the South Beach Dieter, was next to last.  I believe it's because of the deprivation issue. 

Anyway the lady who is using diet and exercise with the help of Oprah's personal trainer Bob Greene, credits the benefit of exercise - of pushing her limits each time, as why she's lost so much.  Just eating right isn't enough.  Just exercising isn't enough.  It takes both, much as that pains me to say.  I hate exercise, but I read somewhere you have to fake it till you make it - so I'm just going to have to grit my teeth and do the work.  I'm going to have to push my limits.

Today when I did my Pilates and I got to that dreaded rolling bridge I never can do, I talked myself through it saying that I could do it.  And you know what?  I did.  I did every single exercise all the way through - no cheating.

Better than that, I did not just the ten minutes on the exercise bike this morning, but I did fifteen.  Through the whole day of my total calories burned, my activities accounted for ten percent.  I like that number, I think I want to aspire to that number. 

And of course I feel better once it's over with.  It's gearing myself up for it that hurts the most, but once you're doing it you're done before you know it and you actually do feel better.  The endorphins are pumping and I actually do feel in control again.  It's such a nice feeling.  Remind me again why I let that go?

I did have a bit of a low point in the day when I read that some people have already heard from Situation: Comedy that they made it to the next round.  I, as of right now, have heard nothing.  I'm kinda bummed.  When I first heard I was just angry.  Then I went through all the self depreciating bs that I must not have any talent whatsoever if every single contest I enter I get passed over. 

But some time has passed since then and I just reminded myself that I prayed over that script before it went out.  If it wasn't God's will for me to win I wasn't gonna.  It's just not my opportunity.   The more I thought about the more I decided I need to declare a war cry on the writing too.  No more hanging my dreams on the quick fixes, it's time to get my butt in gear and do what I know I need to do even if it makes me uncomfortable to do it.  

So as we move toward the year mark of this journal I'm going to celebrate the progress I've made - 70lbs is nothing to sneeze at - and I'm going to incorporate the things that I've learned from my mistakes along the way.

That is, after all, what they're there for anyway.

Calories:  1677
Fat: 32%
Sat. Fat: 9%
Water: 72oz
Exercise: 10 mins stationary bike, walked 1 1/2 mile, Pilates

DAILY AFFIRMATION:  I need to take my lessons from the past, apply them to the present to sculpt my future into what I know it can be.