Trimming the Fat, Vol III, In Pursuit of Health

Ah, the eternal quest for a healthy balance between what is good and what is good for you. I managed to ignore that quest for a little too long but over the last couple years have turned a corner, embracing exercise and healthy eating while vowing never to DIET again.

I can't diet. There is something inside my head that rebels if I even think that I "can't" have a certain food. Let's take brownies for example, as I am ordinately fond of those little gifts from Satan. If I tell myself I can't have brownies, I begin to see brownies everywhere. I believe I can smell brownies around me and I will hunt them down and demolish several at once, just to show that I can. I know, smart, right? Yeah, that'll show me to restrict my foods.

So instead of dieting over the last couple years I've rearranged my way of thinking about eating to some degree. It's mostly about fuel now with only occasional forays into Taco Bell or guilt-free Krispy Kreme snacking (only) while I'm at the beach. I can eat anything I want to eat and now, in so doing, I just don't. Instead, I tend to eat salad every day, often twice a day. I keep grapes and carrots on hand. I make sure to get seven handsful of fruits and veggies every day and I eat very little meat and only super-grainy bread.

I eat real butter but skim milk. If a brownie somehow wanders across my path, I'll eat it, but I'll leave all his buddies on the tray. I drink all the water I'm supposed to every day and only diet sodas and unsweetened tea in restaurants (which is really fine if you add a packet of Sweet&Low).

I also exercise three to five times a week using an elliptical machine, 8 and 10 pound weights, bicycle rides with my sweetheart, evening trail walks with a friend, and some (highly unskilled) yoga poses. After two years doing all this I lost a whopping six pounds. Not much encouragement, right? But I felt better. I actually wanted to be moving and my body hadn't ever been any closer to exercise than reading about it in a book. I felt that change and I jumped on it. I got my doctor to put me on a prescription to help with the weight loss.

Two and a half months in, I'm twenty-two pounds lighter. For the first time in years I'm getting really close to the good side of the 200 pound mark. Another fifty-few pounds and I'm in the best shape I've been since college. And possibly better because I certainly didn't exercise more than my beer-swigging arm then. So I'm feeling good right now.

On the other hand (there's always a dark side with me....) none of my clothes fit properly anymore and it's going to be a WHILE before I will break down and buy new ones because I'll just keep shrinking out of them at this point. So, while I am losing weight and feeling GREAT, I still feel stupid in my clothes. Luckily, I'm thirty-five now and I refuse to waste time worrying what strangers think of me. So my weird baggy attire will get me through a few more months and at some point in the future I will emerge from them, like a butterfly breaking free of its cocoon in the spring.

For now I'm off to find food for my solo dinner. Salad and something are on the menu and I know there's not a brownie in the whole house. Good weekend to you all!