I think it’s important to consider one’s body an ally. There’s a lot of body positivity going around, but I don’t want to just praise my body no matter its state. I want to work with my body to try and reach the goals that I want to achieve. I know that my body won’t succeed if I punish it, and I know that what I need to do is stay the course with calorie counting.
It is natural for the body to resist weight change, to resist reduction. I know that there are factors beyond my ability to measure that influence the number on the scale. And I’ve been sick for pretty much the entire month of February, so my exercise routine is completely thrown off.
I weigh more at the beginning of March than I did at the end of February. But I still weigh less than I did at the beginning of the year. Even though I did bump up slightly over 150 pounds in February, I still believe that staying the course is the right thing to do.
Change isn’t fast.
Change isn’t automatic.
Losing weight is not a simple thing. If it were simple, then EVERYONE would be doing it. There would be no diet industry, no millions of yo-yo dieters gaining and losing the same pounds, no women starving themselves into anorexia and puking themselves into bulimia. It is just NOT a simple thing.
It’s a difficult thing. It requires extreme long term planning. It requires discipline that I didn’t use to have. It requires making the right choices even when they don’t feel like they’re making a difference. It absolutely requires separating one’s emotional state from one’s decision making process. Especially because a reduced calorie diet can make one more emotionally unstable. It’s hard to be stable when you aren’t eating enough; I’ve been on enough backpacking trips when I’ve been hangry to know that lack of food can affect my processing and my emotions.
Trust the process is my mantra. Trust the process and work together. My body cannot function without food, and I cannot function without my body.
I wish calorie counting were a magic bullet. I wish that I could absolutely predict tomorrow’s weight based on what I eat today. But I know from experience that isn’t true. The scale never follows a logical trajectory. That’s part of what makes it hard.
But I’m not in this to lose weight for a weekend or a day. I’m in this to change my body. To reshape it completely. Of course there’s resistance. Of course it’s difficult. I’m changing the foundations of my body, and that’s no simple task.
It may at times feel like two steps forward one step back, or even two steps forward four steps back, but the important part is keeping facing in the right direction and eating enough to sustain weight loss, and not eating enough to gain. A tricky balance, but I’m going to have plenty of time to figure it out.
Because I’m going to stay the course, like the man in the river in the Taoist fable, relaxing into the currents to avoid being dashed upon the rocks. I’m going to finally get over this illness and get back onto my exercise routine. And I’m going to keep up my calorie counting. And I will change my body.