Eat, Pray, Walk — A Weight Loss Year

July 11, 2006
Tuesday

I was going to give up. Yes, indeed, I was. My weight loss is stalled at 5 pounds, I manage an official weigh-in only about every two weeks, and I haven’t been to an actual meeting since maybe May. Although I’ve begun writing again, both online and off, I’ve kept myself busy with other projects and with preparing for my August adventures in Maryland and Vermont. I could say that I more or less watch what I eat, with the emphasis on “less,” but as for exercise (even light daily walking) and really focused attention to the details of dieting and food journaling, I’m just not there.

As I’ve written elsewhere, I don’t want to work, I just want to bang on the drum all day. I read, I write, I read some more, and then I write some more. I haven’t left the house since I got back from church on Sunday, but I’ve been perfectly happy and productive.

Of the weight loss journals I’ve followed, Kat (skinnykat.com) disappeared completely several months ago without explanation (the domain was shut down), and the group at Pair Up/Pare Down have been posting only sporadically. Wendy also was posting infrequently and though I still check her regularly, she’s writing about things other than weight loss these days. And then Erin, after sputtering with less and less frequent updates for the past year, announced that she was fine with maintaining herself physically where she was (about 15 pounds from her ultimate goal, I think) and was no longer very interested in writing about diets and weight loss.

In the course of getting all of my online work reorganized as well as preparing a fellowship application due at the end of the month, I came across a lot of the proud words I’ve written from time to time about my weight loss efforts, one of my perennial Six Goals of a Quality Life. My paper journal even contains actual numbers: “On August 1, 2006, I will weigh ____.”

Not going to happen. We’re at least 80 pounds from there. I might as well announce that on August 1, 2006, or even August 1, 2007, I will have been awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

But I went to a weigh-in (not a meeting) last week, found that I was still entitled to the 5-pound ribbon I finally received, and thought, well, maybe I can use the concept of “refiguring” to write about learning to accept myself just the way I am.

And then for some reason, today I clicked on the link for Lose the Buddha, and there’s Erin, writing about Athena, and the beginnings of the online journaling community, and why we write, and how we can ourselves back to where we once belonged.

I’ve met Athena. I sat next to her at a restaurant in Pittsburgh at the very first JournalCon, back in 2000. I remember her as a slender, fine-boned woman with an easy laugh and a relaxed manner. She seems to be in the same place I am right now. She loves her family, has a good life, but she doesn’t like the way she looks and feels in her clothes and in her skin. She writes:

“I’ve had many stops and starts, a few of which were documented in the previous incarnations of this blog. I’ve used any and all manner of excuses not to do what I know (and have already done!) will work. All my excuses got me was a fatter ass, a more lethargic mom to my kids, and a more defeated woman.”

I know exactly how she feels.

And when she writes:

“Yeah, well, I understand. One look around the internet and you see a lot of floundering weight loss blogs. I had one for a quite some time. It’s hard stuff to change one’s life in pretty hard core, fundamental ways, so it’s not wholly surprising either. The thing is – I keep coming back to how I’m treating myself on a daily basis, and I’ve been awful to me. I eat crap food, sit on my ever-expanding ass too much, and break promises to myself that tomorrow will be different.

“That’s what must change for me – keeping my word to myself.”

I think, there’s no reason I can’t do this too.

I don’t know what happened to Kat. I hope she’s doing well. But Erin’s back. And Athena’s back.

And so am I.

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