tricksy

There is a trick I play on myself to help control my portions:  get a salad. The salad goes in a bowl.  The bowl goes on my plate.  The other stuff has to fit around the bowl.  No getting an extra plate or bowl allowed, and definitely no holding the bowl separately.  

It's an especially nice trick on Sunday nights, which are spaghetti night here.  After an afternoon outside walking around, I wasn't in the mood for salad.  It's cold; so was I.  I wanted hot food.  I wanted to skip the salad.  But I knew what would happen if there was no bowl of salad on there:

 Happily for me, that is clip art, and not my real dinner.

This business of loving my body enough to train it in portion control is hard.  I've been going to bed hungry every night for something like a couple of weeks.  It is of course not REAL hunger...just a desire to have what I want, when I want it, and always more and more of it.  

The fun thing is I'm seeing some results.  Clothes are getting baggier and the profile pic I took today shows less "double-" in the chin.  While I am very focused on the fact that this is about learning to love my body and not about looking better, what I see says I'm loving it well. 

uncomfortably hopeful

It has been a week of a bit more physical labor than usual for me, and along with that, more of that blasted top-of-foot, ankle and leg pain.  Been rockin the heating pad and the Aleve.  Tonight there are some fun things happening in my house.  I'd love to be there, but I'm in bed with my feet elevated.  Gotta get this pain under control, as tomorrow promises 7+ hours of physical work.  Don't want to start out in pain.

Sometimes being "no longer 21" is not so much fun.  

Tonight I am particularly grateful that the approach is "learning to love my body well" and not "yearning and pushing toward a hotter bod."  There is comfort, patience, and a long-term view in this, as I realize that the only way out of more nights like tonight is to get the bod into a condition that doesn't go so quickly to pain.  

It'll take more pain to get to that place.

Love demands seeking it, anyway.

 

imperfect execution and choosing rest

Didn't make it to my workout class today.  DID get a couple of hours of walking-around time in, so the day doesn't feel like a failure in that department.  I was invited to go with a group tonight...they were walking 45 minutes one way.  I really wanted to go - was excited about hanging out with friends, looking forward to seeing more of the city lit up at night, feeling good about the possibility of more exercise.  But...again with the tops of my feet and my ankles.  I had my shoes off by 6:30 PM and couldn't imagine putting them back on.  Darn it.  


I've had them mostly elevated ever since.  I'm headed into an extra-busy week with more than my usual amount of physical activity.  I really don't want to start that out in pain.  


Last night I went to bed hungry...the workout zapped everything out of me that supper had built up.  I learned this important fact:  I DON'T DIE from going to bed hungry.  I know this, but it was good to translate it from head knowledge to practice.  I have tended to run for snacks when I'm hungry at night.


Looks like tonight I'll go 2 for 2 on that front.  Craving a giant bowl of cereal.  


I have a very clear understanding just now in my head that what I'm doing with my body is the same thing I've had to do with an overly tired, whiny kid from time to time:  know what it needs, and not listen to its demands for what is not at all good for it.  

Gonna sleep instead.

win

Well, the bad news is I don't totally "own" the plank yet. Tonight I fell down 3 times.  Shoot.

Nonetheless, I'm counting today a victory:

*I squeezed 40 minutes of walking in on my lunch break (the gorgeous weather made it more or less impossible not to walk.)

*Supper tonight included some sort of chocolately frosted deliciousness brownie-ish looking things...and I gazed longingly at them and walked on without one.

*I didn't want to go to my workout tonight - had a massive battle with myself in my room and only made it into my sweats and down the elevator by the skin of my teeth.  Got there and a complication and delay re: our workout room offered me a possibility of slinking quietly away.  Won another battle against that temptation.  Stayed.  Worked out.  

WIN.

 

stop the world! i have an announcement!

Tonight, I DID THE PLANK.  You know, that thing that's kind of like a man's pushup only on the elbows instead of the hands...hold the position for some unreasonable amount of time...before tonight, I have only been able to fall down repeatedly while the other ladies held their positions.  I would fall maybe 5 or 6 times while they were like...um...planks.

Tonight, I DID NOT FALL!  I shook, I sweated, I nearly swore...but I did not fall!!!!

Glory, hallelujah, there is hope.

Hey body, I'm starting to have fun and I think you are too...

sometimes 2 really is better than 1...and 3 is a party

For years people have been telling me how much it helps to exercise with friends - how it makes the experience more pleasant, how it increases accountability, how it saves one from dying away from it.  I have nodded...yeah, yeah, I know...but I haven't really wanted to hear it.  This has been an area of my life I have remained a stubborn loner, preferring to do it on my own, thank you very much.  

But they were right.

My exercise class didn't fit in my other commitments tonight.  I was talking this through with my friend, who is also in the class and is a GREAT encourager who tolerates my reluctance with great stamina.  I wanted to use the time between my 2 Bible studies for a walk...but by that time, it's dark outside and "outside alone after dark" isn't something I do here in the city.  I knew I could climb the stairs here, but I hate that.  I love walking outside in this impending-spring air.  I was definitely whining when talking to my friend about it all.  

Actually, there is time right after work to walk, before supper.  She was quick to offer to walk with me then.  

Reluctance really should be my middle name.  I sighed and smiled.  "Yes, that would be a good idea.  I'll walk much faster with you than I would without."   Seriously, why does she put up with me?!

We had a great walk.  Another friend joined us.  The fresh air was delicious.  Stomping through the mud and snow and tiptoeing around the puddles was childlike fun.  Laughing and talking together made the fact that we were walking much faster than I walk alone seem like not really so much a hardship.  I was invigorated.  I burned calories.  I worked up a sweat without feeling overly taxed.  And my muscles are telling me tonight that they got worked for real. 

I felt better toward my body when we got home than I did before we left.  I mean, I get that this "loving my body" thing has to be more than just a feeling...it has to be built of many, many decisions.  But noticing that the feeling part improved a notch...

...that was pretty nice.

 

progress and popcorn knees

I ran into someone from my workout class tonight as I was headed up the elevator.  "Are you coming to class?" was her question.  She got my usual:  reluctant assent.  Yes, I will be there, and my bad attitude will be with me.  

A cool thing is that there were several exercises we did tonight that seemed so far outside my abilities that I broke out laughing when they were introduced...but then I tried them and I could sorta kinda do them!  I am so grateful that I don't get kicked out of the class for my doubt.  

We've been doing wall squats for a few times now.  I'm really having trouble with them, for this reason:  my knees sound like a popcorn factory or a fireworks store on fire when I do them...and the popping hurts.  I'm generally not that thrown by popping...heck, back in my pom-pom girl days my knees used to pop all the way up and down the stairs.  But that didn't hurt.  This does, and it's not just one or two pops...it's like 50 of them (I am not exaggerating).  

I asked about it and was told it means I need to strengthen the muscles around my knees.  That makes sense.

It still scares the crap out of me.