Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Making Light

So I wrote this long ass rant earlier about how I’m feeling like a failure lately.  It’s a little too whiny and negative to really post, but it helped me get some messy subconscious stuff out and visible to me, and I wanted to share my thought process when I work through a negative emotions day:

Problem: New Years Resolutions: fail.  I have not had one weigh in with my maintenance range.  My half marathon goal got trashed by a nasty cold, and I’m not doing a marathon now.  I haven’t touched a book, or been writing other than the blog.

Solution: Allow some things to slip to the back burner.  New accomplishments at work were something I hadn’t even anticipated making strides with this year.  I chose to not do the marathon of my own volition and instead chose a very worthy alternate goal, an olympic triathalon, which sounded like much more fun to train for and just about as badass on the proverbial athlete resume.  The book thing?  Also kinda fallen by the wayside with work.  I have doubts about how kindly my company would take to me being a published author while employed there, and I think the urgency there was a desire to find some way to support myself in lieu of my current career.  Now that I’m lovin’ it again, sadly, it’s going to go back to someday.  And that’s ok.  There is a reason for all of it.  I’m not just a worthless slob.

Problem: And let’s elaborate on the weight thing.  I am killing myself here and I’m barely in the 150’s.  Before I ditched the scale a few weeks before the half, I was around 157.  Then all of a sudden I woke up 2 months later at 163.  I cannot fathom how I gained SIX lbs.  And as much as I have an ethos of trying to forgive and move forward, I just can’t here right now.  And my friends – losing 10 lbs is SO MUCH HARDER than losing 100.  At 100 to go, you obviously have a lot of changes to do that make sense.  Y’know, not washing down your double cheeseburger with a chocolate shake and eating veggies instead of french fries.  Losing 10 lbs is hard because I don’t have easy big changes to make.  It is really one little decision that tests my willpower and resolve after another and another.  It’s tiring.  And frustrating because I’ve seen all these numbers on the scale before.  So it’s not like *woohoo, a new low* it’s *oh, I’m here again…* which is not nearly as exciting.

Also with the appearance, I am really frustrated with half my closet not fitting right.  Never thought 5-10 lbs would make that much of a difference, but it does.  Some pants that fit fine before give me a pooch.  So I can only wear them with looser shirts.  And some shirts that were perfectly fine in length are now too short.  So I’m back to wearing my size 8/10/12s instead of my 6/8/10s.  It makes me mad because I have worked SO HARD to earn the right to have a closet full of clothing that fits me and looks good.  I guess I just can’t have nice things.

Solution: I just gotta keep on keepin’ on.  I will continue on with my current plan.  It’s slow going but it seems to be working on a month by month view.  To appease Zliten (and to combat my crazies) I will try to whittle my exercise down to 5 days per week of training, and request that one other day we do something cool like a walking adventure or skating or climbing or something active.  So bike/swim one day, weights/swim one day, long bike one day, long run one day, bike/run one day, I guess.  All I’m missing is one session of weights and I can just wrap those around some of the other workouts in 10 – 15 min segments.

As for the food?  I’ll just keep taking stabs in the dark until I find the magic formula.  And not deviate too much from what I’m doing because it’s going (painfully slowly) in the right direction.  Then I will sell it and be rich!  Muahaha!  And really?  I need to remember that as frustrating as it is to me, 10 lbs is really and truly cosmetic.  Wah me, I’m a size 8 not a size 6.  Some of my XS shirts don’t fit anymore.  It’s not the end of the world.  I’m going to keep on towards it, but sheesh, not something to get my panties in a wad about.  Easier said than done, but here’s hoping.

Problem: I’m frustrated because I haven’t tackled the “finding somewhere to swim” yet.  If it were completely up to me I would be at a different place every day or 2 checking out pools but there is only so often that work/other obligations/can drag Zliten with since he’s joining up somewhere too.  I think it will probably be next Tuesday before we can make another attempt because we have other plans and priorities.  So my lovely idea to swim twice this week?  Absolute fail.  And getting access to a pool is going to cost us a lot, not to mention lessons… it just feels overwhelming.  Running was easy because all I need is shoes.  Biking, I’m getting over the whole “need Zliten to go with so I feel safe” thing and also getting over my hatred of gym bikes.  But of course, the swimming thing is what I need to work on the very most, and I don’t have a way to do it.

Solution: This Sunday if at all possible (I think I found a loophole in our schedule) I want to check out the Y up north that supposedly has an awesome lap pool and evaluate whether it’s worth the drive 2x week.  If not, next Tuesday begins the gym-ocolypse to see if we can find a good home that’s not too pricey.  With a nice pool.  That maybe offers lessons so we don’t have to spend an extra 50 bucks a month on that.  Argh!  I don’t know why this is stressing me out so but it is.  I just have to take solace in the fact that I was able to rock the full distance of the swim for the tri on my first… try (badup, ching!) so I should be ok in a pinch.  It’s really a priority when I go from sprint to olympic but that’s 2 months from now.

Problem: My hair is repulsive right now.  It’s at a really bad length where it doesn’t look good no matter WHAT I do with it.  I haven’t been bothering washing it more than once a week because it really doesn’t matter, it looks gross either way.  And I seem to be putting off and subconsciously scared of doing something about it.  Y’all, I’ve never been to a salon.  Maybe supercuts here or there in a pinch, but my hair has been tended to by my mother, and then by Zliten.  And I’ve had the same haircut since I was 14 – shoulder length or longer, all one length.  I am really wanting something *different* but terrified to go somewhere hip that will do something that requires a lot of maintenance and doesn’t work for working out.  Or that just looks god awful.  And with all this talk about pools costing a ton of money, I don’t want to spend 100 bucks on a haircut.  But I told myself I was going to not do the Zliten cut this time, I was going to do something different.  So here I sit.

Solution: First step – Zliten is cutting my hair tomorrow.  Asking for it a little bit longer than I really want it so I’m still motivated to go get it styled eventually, but if it’s really making me this unhappy, I need to deal with it.  And since I’m obviously not mentally ready to let someone else touch it yet, forcing myself into it is not the best idea.  It may be such a minor thing to y’all, but it has big significance to me.  Even when I was at my fattest, I was the chick with the cool long hair.  Now I don’t care for it to be long anymore, but I’m so afraid of getting a cut that makes my face look rounder.  Or ending up with something so high maintenance to make it look decent (hi2u late 90s jennifer anniston cut that looked HORRIBLE and took forever to grow out) that I just look like dog poopy for months.  Any of you girlier girls out there, I need HELP here.  What would you suggest for this mug with naturally wavy hair?  I just can’t do the “get up and style my hair” every morning thing – so it has to be get up (maybe put some product in, and possibly brush it) and go.

Problem: I’ve come to terms that I AM actually pretty bitter about the half marathon earlier this year.  Training so precisely and so hard for 3 months just to get sick sucked balls.  Plain and simple.  I want revenge.  I at least want a PR.  I mean, I’m terribly proud of my level of fitness that I could even consider running 13.1 miles hacking up a lung with a sore throat, and even come within 3 minutes of my previous time, but still.

Solution: The marathon I was going to run in November has a half.  I think I can do it with less training – especially if I’m just coming off training for an olympic tri – I’ll have great endurance and pretty fresh legs.  If not, I’m targeting a weekend of crazy – half marathon trail run one day, duathlon the next (with a campout in the middle).  That’s a special level of hell I will just be proud to finish.  It’s been the year of non-traditional road races so far, it might just continue.  But I need to rock another half marathon soon.  It is inevitable.

There are a couple more personal things I’ve worked through too and have a plan for.  It was a very productive thought day (and a very productive day at work, apparently I can have deep thoughts and crunch numbers in spreadsheets really well together).  So my take on negative thoughts: have ’em.  If you’re upset about something, be upset.  It’s healthy to be unhappy about things that aren’t right in your life no matter how trivial they are.  But make them a call to action rather than an excuse to wallow and be destructive.  In a former life I might have berated myself for being too much of a wuss to get a haircut.  Now I realize there are only so many scary things I can take on at once without breaking down, and this is not something to get upset about.  Make a to do list, and check them off as you can.

Your turn.  What’s got your panties in a wad?  What’s your plan of action to restore happiness and harmony?  If nothing – how do you plan to accept yourself as is?  And pleeeeease, who has suggestions about the haircut thing?

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3 Comments

  1. You may feel as though you’ve not achieved some of the things you’ve set out to, but you have made some great progress in a LOT of areas!

    I agree with you. 10 pounds is hard to lose. I’m working with someone now who needs to lose 200 pounds and she gets annoyed when someone around her complains about their 10 pounds. I told her, “Those 10 pounds are as important to that person as your 100+ pounds is to you.” I hope one day she will believe me!

    It sounds like your schedule is super crazy. I hope you will be able to get around to some pools. I’m just impressed with all you do!!!

  2. MizFit

    thoughts

    saw your tweets this weekend and sounds like things are looking up? the bikeridingtobreakfast and that you love your hair?

    wanna see pics.

  3. First – I already peeked ahead at your next post and your hair is cuuuute! Zliten does nice work!

    Second – You know how much I hear you on this post. 10 pounds can be so demoralizing. And it does make everything fit different. (And also I can’t do pull-ups at this weight and yet I can do 3 without the 10 lbs). I love how rational and reasonable you are being about all of this. I’m trying to get there! Thanks for sharing this – made me feel hopeful:)

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