Thinking too much tonight.
Been thinking today about my body. That's rarely a good idea.
I'm not happy with my body tonight.
Some days I can be okay with myself. I can tell myself that I'm beautiful and really believe it. It helps a lot to have Jesse tell me and show me that he honestly means it when he can. I'm getting better at accepting that "large but shapely" is okay and even desirable. I'm not going to try and think about what it means that desirable is one of the ways I measure my self-image, at the moment.
The truth is, though, that I'm not happy with my body. I haven't stepped on a scale in the last 3 weeks, so my figure's probably low, but... I've gained about 25 lbs this year... mostly this semester. And I'm starting to feel it now, in the way I move. Definitely in the way my clothes fit. I had to buy new jeans just before spring break because the old ones died in the same way as all the ones before them - frayed at the seams on my inner thighs because of the combination of friction and tightly stretched fabric. I've got a whole drawer full of jeans like that, too worn to give away. I don't know why I keep them, I guess in the hope that someday they'll fit again and I'll have reason to mend them. They looked really good at the time. But now... 2 months later and the new jeans are already too tight.
I think I may have hit a point where I've lost control of my weight, and I don't know why. It may have just been that it was a tough semester and all of my classes were close by... lots of time spent sitting and reading, comfort eating, not doing my normal amount of walking. Whatever the cause, I way the most every day that I ever have. In a lot of ways it scares me.
I know what it takes to stop this, of course. Diet and exercise, the old one-two punch. So here are the excuses: I eat from a caf and have a hard time controlling what I eat... being vegetarian, I'm pretty much forced to take whatever meager options they give me. I also don't know portion sizes, calories, etc etc. Studying is my top priority, and that leaves me with barely enough time to sleep, much less exercise. And increasingly, it's tough to get myself to do anything. It's a downward spiral as activity becomes more difficult as I gain weight.
Really, though, they're just excuses. I could if I wanted to badly enough. Which is more depressing than encouraging. That just implies that I'm lazy or unmotivated, and I suppose you wouldn't have a very tough time making that argument. But I think there's more to it... I think it's that I'm terrified of that sort of lifestyle change. Logically speaking, I should be okay with a change like that. It's for my own benefit, after all, and I've already shown I can do that by becoming vegetarian.
Trying to create a healthy life is more tricky, though. With being vegetarian, it's fairly simple... read a few labels, think a bit more about protein sources. It helped that I was never really a meat fan, too. But eating better, that's tough. You can't just stop eating. I like the unhealthy food, and I've never been good at moderation with things I like. It tends to be all or nothing, and I don't know if I'd be able to do "nothing" here. It's like how a lot of people react to my being vegetarian. "I could never do that, I love meat too much". For me, it's chocolate, sweets, whatever. I'm not a fan of junk food per se, but in the caf it's all junk really.
I know I need to, though. It's not healthy to be at the weight I'm at, and I don't like it either. Heart disease doesn't run in my family, but adult diabetes does pretty strongly. I'm certainly not helping in that trend. But some days I just feel so helpless, and I wonder what it will take to make this matter enough - and whether when that day comes it will be too late.
I'm not happy with my body tonight.
Some days I can be okay with myself. I can tell myself that I'm beautiful and really believe it. It helps a lot to have Jesse tell me and show me that he honestly means it when he can. I'm getting better at accepting that "large but shapely" is okay and even desirable. I'm not going to try and think about what it means that desirable is one of the ways I measure my self-image, at the moment.
The truth is, though, that I'm not happy with my body. I haven't stepped on a scale in the last 3 weeks, so my figure's probably low, but... I've gained about 25 lbs this year... mostly this semester. And I'm starting to feel it now, in the way I move. Definitely in the way my clothes fit. I had to buy new jeans just before spring break because the old ones died in the same way as all the ones before them - frayed at the seams on my inner thighs because of the combination of friction and tightly stretched fabric. I've got a whole drawer full of jeans like that, too worn to give away. I don't know why I keep them, I guess in the hope that someday they'll fit again and I'll have reason to mend them. They looked really good at the time. But now... 2 months later and the new jeans are already too tight.
I think I may have hit a point where I've lost control of my weight, and I don't know why. It may have just been that it was a tough semester and all of my classes were close by... lots of time spent sitting and reading, comfort eating, not doing my normal amount of walking. Whatever the cause, I way the most every day that I ever have. In a lot of ways it scares me.
I know what it takes to stop this, of course. Diet and exercise, the old one-two punch. So here are the excuses: I eat from a caf and have a hard time controlling what I eat... being vegetarian, I'm pretty much forced to take whatever meager options they give me. I also don't know portion sizes, calories, etc etc. Studying is my top priority, and that leaves me with barely enough time to sleep, much less exercise. And increasingly, it's tough to get myself to do anything. It's a downward spiral as activity becomes more difficult as I gain weight.
Really, though, they're just excuses. I could if I wanted to badly enough. Which is more depressing than encouraging. That just implies that I'm lazy or unmotivated, and I suppose you wouldn't have a very tough time making that argument. But I think there's more to it... I think it's that I'm terrified of that sort of lifestyle change. Logically speaking, I should be okay with a change like that. It's for my own benefit, after all, and I've already shown I can do that by becoming vegetarian.
Trying to create a healthy life is more tricky, though. With being vegetarian, it's fairly simple... read a few labels, think a bit more about protein sources. It helped that I was never really a meat fan, too. But eating better, that's tough. You can't just stop eating. I like the unhealthy food, and I've never been good at moderation with things I like. It tends to be all or nothing, and I don't know if I'd be able to do "nothing" here. It's like how a lot of people react to my being vegetarian. "I could never do that, I love meat too much". For me, it's chocolate, sweets, whatever. I'm not a fan of junk food per se, but in the caf it's all junk really.
I know I need to, though. It's not healthy to be at the weight I'm at, and I don't like it either. Heart disease doesn't run in my family, but adult diabetes does pretty strongly. I'm certainly not helping in that trend. But some days I just feel so helpless, and I wonder what it will take to make this matter enough - and whether when that day comes it will be too late.