Part Five: For the love of God it isn’t working!

Pulling on my pants over my backside and trying to find tops that sufficiently conceal my belly this week has really taken its toll. Yes, I had a cold and wasn’t feeling well for a couple of days and missed one of my bellydance classes and one of my yoga classes. Yes, I drank some out-of-date-no-refrigeration-needed-creamer (in my coffee or course, not straight :) and it made me feel so weird that I had to call Poison Control. Yes, I have been eating sweets with an uncontrolled, insatiable appetite. But do I really have to be gaining more weight? Again?

As my Mother is always saying, “Why is it so hard to take off, and so easy to put on?” Well Mama, I don’t know. I do know, however, that I seem to have mastered the art without fully understanding the process. So now all of the clothes that I bought to accommodate how full my figure was becoming in the last installment of clothes is being challenged. I find that more than mildly annoying. Don’t most people lose a little pudge when they get under the weather? Not me, clearly. It isn’t quite that I’m plump that’s the problem - it’s that I have crossed my personal threshold of where I want to be...again.

So what do I do? Where is the lost connection? What was missing this past week that has caused me to lose ground in my battle to just be slightly less dimply? Well, what happened this week is not so strange. If fact, it happens every week - I have little or no time to accomplish any of the things I want to do and as a result things pile up. Everywhere. My room is full of clothes, my living room is full of books and piles of paper, and my body is full of goo.

Things I am nervous about:

• The hafla is looming on the horizon, and my belly roll is looking more like a jelly roll.
• That I am on slippery ground when it comes to being able to have any self-control at all when it comes to food. I can justify eating pretty much anything by telling myself, “well, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow.”
• I am craving sugar like I never really have before and it is making me nervous, especially because my body is very sensitive to things like sugar and caffeine already.
• Will I ever have the time and energy in a day to get as organized as I need to be to live the life I want to live?

Things that give me hope:

• My self-esteem is better than it has been in the past by far, so this little setback is only that - little.
• I have support from people who love me.
• I don’t have to stop eating whatever I want altogether, I just have to be more selective about how I do it and how much I do it.
• I am reaching my personal threshold of self-annoyance with this whole personal wellness effort. I need to get it together and I am getting fed up! There is no motivator quite like anger.

Things I plan to do (I’m on the rampage now):

• Carve out a cupboard in my kitchen that is solely dedicated to things that I need to eat to be healthier. I absolutely can’t stand looking around for something to eat in the kitchen and feeling like I can’t eat any of it.
• Reacquaint myself with our cookbooks and commit myself to making more complete meals that have higher nutritional value. There needs to be a full-flavor option in what I prepare that will keep me full for a longer period of time then my usual carbohydrate crutches.
• Flavor matters. When I worked at Zingerman’s, part of my orientation was to take classes, and many of them had to do with learning why their food was so good. I believe it was in a class with Ari that I heard this thought: that we eat so much (particularly in this country) because so much of what we eat is poor quality food and thus leaves a lack of real flavor and satisfaction in our mouths, so much so, in fact, that we are driven to shove more and more of these foodstuffs into our mouths to compensate for the lack of quality and flavor. On the flipside, when we eat spectacular food, we don’t have to eat as much, because we are satiated with less. Do we want more because it’s so good? Sure. But I can personally attest to the fact that I can eat far less of something divine and be satisfied than I can, say, a bag of Better Made potato chips (which, don’t get me wrong, on the right day can be fabulous, but I digress.)
• I also am committed to getting my derrière up and moving in the morning and more so in the evening than I have been. It may take some self-created incentives to get motivated, but I need to put my foot down. Something has to change.

I believe it was Gandhi who said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” I’ve come back to this quote over and over again during my lifetime, and it has applied to almost every facet of life that I can think of - so why not harness the passion I have for the sentiment and intention behind this statement when it is applied to civil rights or environmental justice and make a version of it my own as I formulate an effective approach toward personal wellness? I think that unless I keep up the intensity of my goals in this venture to a point where I am compelled to care enough to make those changes on a daily, hourly and long-term basis, I won’t be able to. If only someone could make a gripping movie trailer each day, capturing the epic struggle of getting in better health to keep me motivated (and frankly, it could be done every few hours to keep me interested.) It turns out that person is me. I must take up the pen and author the revolutionary story of my own life and the journeys I take. Not just in terms of personal wellness, but having that be a part of it. I need to weave all of the story threads in my life together and realize in a very real and tangible way that they are all part of the greater tapestry of my story, my adventure.

See? Now I’m all motivated to go out and hike through the woods, have a late lunch at an Indian restaurant, and end the day by working on my life’s dream: writing a novel. Now if I only had the time…