One of the hardest things about losing weight is that you can't do it in a bubble. It would be easy enough to hole-up in the house for a couple months, stock up on pre-portioned meals and workout videos, watch the pounds melt away, reemerge from the house looking all hot, and call it a day.
If only.
Instead, I constantly struggle to continue living while doing this. This means that on a daily basis, I have to step out of the diet bubble and interact with real-life people who may or may not be on diets themselves.
Three challenges immediately come to mind:
1) Not boring people out of their fucking minds. Let's face it, keeping track of calories, exercising, and then taking the time to sit down, self-reflect, and write about it is really time-consuming. It has sort of become the center of my little universe. So when I get together with friends or family members and folks ask, "What's up with you?" it's very difficult to walk the line between giving a brief update and droning on for an uncomfortably long time about, well, keeping track of calories, exercising, and then taking the time to sit down, self-reflect, and write about it. So, my apologies go out to any of my readers who are also around to hear about this in real life. I know it's not interesting....and I try to be brief. Honest.
2) Not wanting to kill everyone who isn't on a diet. This is one that I am ashamed to admit. I'd love to be happy for my friends when they go on a McDonalds binge or enjoy a couple courses at a five-star restaurant. But even though I keep my cool on the outside, on the inside I wanna be like....
Just yesterday, The H and I decided to go on an Urban Hike (well, more like an "Urban Meander" because The H walks really slow and gets easily distracted by shiny things). And not even two seconds after we get started, he decides that he wants to begin the hike with a couple McDoubles.
I'm not kidding. I even took pictures so I would have proof.
Oh, I might have eye-rolled him and made a snide comment about McDonalds being disgusting, but inside I was like
3) Temptation. Temptation. Temptation. So after getting over the initial feeling of wanting to murder my friends who have not subjected themselves to the self-inflicted misery of a diet, a second and far more dangerous feeling takes hold: temptation.
I do a mental tug-of-war with myself every.single.time. I see someone eating or drinking something that I really wish I were eating or drinking. Sometimes I find myself dreading social gatherings simply because I am afraid to succumb to the temptation. I wish I could offer some awesome insight into how to cope with this, but so far I am coming up short. Playing Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" in my head works to a point. But usually I just end up going home a little earlier than normal.
It helps that it's working. Days like today where I reach a new low-point are always exciting and they give me some willpower to overcome temptation because the results are its own reward. But I would be lying if I said that it wasn't hard.
But I also would be lying if I didn't say that stepping out of my own little bubble sometimes yields surprising sources of encouragement and inspiration.
Just this week I've had a friend who read the blog offer to let me tag along to her Pure Barre class (which is apparently, like, the hottest exercise trend among young, female, WOPs right now). Of course I said yes. This is like being asked to have lunch with the cool kids.
Another friend clued me in to an awesome farmer's market that sells huge boxes of locally grown produce for $20.00 (I'll probably buy one and devote an entire post to it).
A couple others have offered to sign up for next week's 5k with me.
A couple others asked me to join them in another 5k the week after the first one.
And in a sign of solidarity, even the cat decided to do weigh-ins.
It's truly humbling and amazing to know that there are people who are following the blog and pulling for me. Their support means more than they'll ever know, and so does the support of all of you who read this. Thanks for reading.
Onward.
