Would you be surprised if I told you I wanted to lose some weight? Have we met? Of freaking course I want to lost some weight because I'm like almost every other human in America that looks in the mirror and finds themselves lacking by packing on too many pounds. I've Whole30-ied until I wanted to eat a whole 30 pack of cookies, I've South Beached myself like a whale, I Weight Watchered as I watched myself gain weight, and I've sampled various other iterations of a diet since I can remember. You name it, and I've probably tried it: Cottage cheese, cabbage soup, grapefruit, the weird one where you eat a hot dog and saltines, the Flat Belly, Paleo, Keto (with a faulty gallbladder...ouch!), and others that I can't remember the names of because they were fleeting affairs that passed in and out of existence before I could gain all the weight back that I lost in our brief time together.
I might have been 5 or 6 when my brothers teased me about having a double chin. "Lord, no!!!! Not the double chin! Wait. What is that exactly?" Along with school and wanting to fit in and all the pressures of surviving your peers, I became really conscious about every little perceived possible about my weight. My brothers had a little nickname for me, Alli-Chun or Chun for short. It was just a play on my name, but I hated that nickname when I was little because I thought they used it to tease me about my weight. They didn't. It was just the societal expectations of body and size already working their voodoo against me. I always heard that nickname as "Here comes the Chun!" like I was a sumo wrestler stomping out into the ring for battle. I once pretended to read the definition of Chun in the dictionary to them to tell them it was a bad word they should stop using. "Chun: a name you call a fat sister that you are making fun of."
When I was in late high school or early college, I had a relative once say to me in front of one of my brothers, "What would you like for Christmas? Want to go to Fat Camp?" I died and melted into the floor never to be seen again, or at least that's what I wished would happen to me. It was meant to be helpful, but I had no vocabulary to talk about body or perception or size or any of that and instead just felt shame. What a waste of time shame is. Instead, I shrugged it off and said, "Nah. I like myself just fine the way I am," and thankfully I wasn't struck dead by lightning for telling that whopper of a lie. I did like my personality, because let's be honest. When you are the fat friend, you develop an AMAZING personality and sense of humor.
Fast forward to Age 45, and yes, I still want to lose weight. Admittedly, there's still the vanity of it all. I want to look goooooood. Not good as in "Oh, look at that normal, average person that blends in with all the other average-size, not fat yet not thin people." I mean good as in I want to look in the mirror and think, "Damn. I look goooooood today." I used to tell myself I wanted Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2 good, but I have adjusted expectations.
I also want to lose weight because I want to feel gooooood. Not good like, "Meh. I don't feel awful and tired and moody." I mean good like, "Damn. I have so much energy today, I'm happy, and I feel gooooooooood." Maybe that's a sign of a bit more maturity in my part. I'm not here just for the non-plus size jeans. I'm here for the plus size joie de vivre.
To take this plus sized bull by the horns, I started a program 6 weeks ago to lose weight. I have committed that I will stick to the plan for 6 months, until I go to the beach with family in late June. Then I will come home, reassess, set my goal, and get back on the plan until I reach that goal. There's a place that overweight people call Onederland. It's weighting under 200 pounds. I imagine there's a town with a big banner that says, "Welcome to Onederland! Where the donuts have no calories and the pizza is good for you." I want to live comfortably in Onderland, not on the outskirts close to neighboring town of TwoHundredTooManyCookiesMyGodHowMuchDoYouWeigh Village.
Sounds easy, right? 6 months, reassess, and then complete the goal. Sometimes it feels that way, but a lot of times I have to give myself a big pep talk about why I can do hard things, why I want to do this particular hard thing, and how quickly this time will pass. I say things like, "If you cheat today, that sets you back three days." I don't want to be on this for any extra days more than I have to be on this.
Don't get me wrong. I read all the stuff about this being a lifestyle change and changing my habits. That's all good too, and I'll save how some of my habits are changing in a future post. But honestly, why would I waste my time by cheating? Why would I undermine myself that way? Those are the bricks I use to build the damn against self-sabotage. Let's hope they hold!
This program tells you to write down your list of Whys. Why do you want to do this? When you are feeling down or struggling, you go back to your list or you add to your list or you make a new list of Whys, because Whys are constantly evolving. So here are some of my Whys.
