Why?! - Wednesday
When I was in nursing school I had a terrifying Women’s Health/Maternal/Newborn instructor. She was very outspoken, wore dark red lipstick on top of which she often perched and bounced the end of the curvy dark glasses she wore and then held in her hand as you answered a question, stammering and floundering. She had a thick and loud Pittsburg accent. She turned out to actually be a quite pleasant person but this was only discovered after I had finally toughened up and passed her class and clinical. This was the area of nursing I was most interested in and she nearly scared me away for life. I hope not intentionally.
There is one thing I learned from her that I will never forget and I have applied to just about everything in my life I’ve ever had to sort through. She would always ask why until the question was exhausted. In real life, as well as nursing life, this has led me to scrutinize many plans and ideas whenever the answer to “why?” becomes unacceptable in anyway. The project or effort is often abandoned and exchanged for a more acceptable use of my time and effort. It is with this in mind that I give you “WHY?!” Wednesday. This week I’m looking at “Why do I care what I weigh?” to be followed by “Why am I so busy?” next week.
I, like so many of you, have fought the scale. I have, as long as I can remember, been concerned that I am the “right” size and shape. This is something most women think about whether they like to admit it or not. I’m always baffled to see another lady struggling to lose 15 pounds that I swear look like they could only be carried around in her purse; she looks thin and healthy and beautiful.
The thing is, we don’t know. We don’t know what another woman weighs. I always have assumed I am profoundly fatter, more overweight, less healthy and less attractive than just about everyone else; coinciding with this assumption is the thought that I also must be weak and entirely lacking will power. Why? Well, as a society we are obsessed with it while we are such a “medically” overweight society. Why is a country so obsessed with health and dieting and work outs so fat?
I remember being vaguely concerned and self- conscious growing up. I was aware of my awkwardness and my rolly-polly nature. I had an older sister who, even 2 years my senior, was always smaller, skinnier, shorter and leaner than me. What started in my youth as more a curiosity has developed, in adulthood, as a bit of an obsession; or at least it did. I have lately come to wonder why.
When I was first married my husband was deployed, a few short weeks after our wedding. When he was gone I had nothing to do and I missed him so very much, feeling a little ripped off that my first year of married life was taken from me. Not having a family to take care of yet I had all that time to myself. I joined a gym close to our apartment and paid a trainer to plan meals for me and I met her every week, sometimes twice, to workout. On her advice I also ran 2 or three times a week. She was a great trainer with a lot of knowledge and encouragement. Within a couple of months I was in the best shape of my life. That was probably the last time I had the kind of extra money laying around to do that. I probably didn’t even have it then but I spent it anyway. You can see why this is not something I could maintain for the rest of my life.
Later on, there was life and babies and marriage and I would try numerous other things to regain that fitness level with varying degrees of success. I tried a boot camp, another trainer, the zone diet, P90X, Insanity, Whole30, training for a half marathon, training for a 10k, a 5k, TurboFire, Weight Watchers, paleo, The Atkins (which ended abruptly after one week at Kroger with a package of cookies and a loaf of garlic bread in my hand), my fitness pal, calorie counting with Fitbit…
Even after initial success, a year or two or a life even later and I would find myself tortured with the guilt of letting my weight creep up again.
I’ve gained and lost and gained a lot of weight over the past 9 years especially. This year I started out thinking that I felt very uncomfortable. I tried all of the other methods from before, trying to eat what I should and do what I should and count the calories that I should….. When the question arose, “why”? Why does it give me such grief to weigh more? The answer is simple, I’m uncomfortable and I don’t want something silly like weight to impede my ability to be a good wife and mother. It isn’t because everyone else seems to weigh less, because that’s ridiculous. It isn’t because what I weigh is shameful and even though I feel like I look like a person sized russet potato sometimes, it isn’t even really because I want to look good. Yet, so many times I compare myself and measure my worth by my success at weight loss and I compare myself to everyone around me even if I don’t have accurate information. After all, it’s plastered everywhere. Work out plans, diets, commercials on the radio, cold sculpting nonsense…Why do I care so much about how I compare to others?
None of the things I had tried before could be performed on any kind of permanent basis. Yes, there are a handful of weirdos out there that are perfectly content to eat handfuls of almonds and kale chips for the rest of their lives while they go to cross fit gyms but I’m not one of them. I love my food. I love to cook and bake and share with others. I like meals to be events, hand crafted and savored. I also love to be active. I like to keep moving. Sometimes this means workouts other times it means keeping up with the kids or keeping house.
None of the things I’ve tried before, other than the goal of achieving a weight described by a doctor as healthy for my build and height, was aimed at achieving any kind of realistic long term, life-long goal. It was geared toward my size, my weight, and my calories. Something that really gets in the way of the real problem and of actually living a life.
Why do I care if I look like a fitness model? Even if my body would cooperate by some miracle, there’s the matter of my weird face. Classic beauty I am not, and I’m certainly not looking for comments like “oh, but you’re so pretty!”. That’s just silly. I’m talking comparison wise. I look like me. You look like you. I will never look like someone else or something else and I don’t want to. You shouldn’t either.
If you have sleek, beautiful muscles all over, what’s the point? Other than showing off your bod, what is the point of the hours at the gym? Are you going to plow some land with those, or carry other’s to safety in the event of some terrible catastrophe? The whole vain idea rubs against my pragmatist brain in a very abrasive way and scours at my practical nature especially now that I’m old enough to know I don’t really have to pretend like I care. I’m all for health. I want to enjoy God’s blessings and be a strong servant even physically, and that’s WHY I know I’ve needed to make a change. If it’s a matter of attractiveness, I care whether or not my husband finds me so. He does, even when I wanted to vomit when I stepped on the scale, even when I was 9 months pregnant, even in that greasy, over-tired postpartum phase and even when I buy a pair of jeans that are bigger than last time. WHY DO I CARE ABOUT SOMETHING SO VERY SUBJECTIVE AND RIDICULOUS?? There is no way to measure that? I’ve spent a lot of years letting the fact that I weighed more than I wanted to when I went to the Doctor, ruin whole weeks.
Ok, hopefully I’ve struck a note here with you. Just about everyone I know has had a New Year’s resolution regarding weight loss or the look of their bodies or their health. This isn’t all about me and that’s why I’m putting this out there.
After starting and stopping, often with a cupcake, a Whole30 this January 4 times and feeling like a complete utter failure who should promptly admit to being a hopeless glutton-pig-russet-potato that would never have any self-control I prayed. Oh I prayed and simultaneously cursed my stupid thyroid.
I decided that I wasn’t going to try anything else anymore that I couldn’t expect to do forever and I prayed that I’d find that forever solution.
At my work they have a program that my employer pays half for called Naturally Slim. I started the program two and a half weeks ago. Look it up, it will change your life if any of the above sounds familiar to you. In their program you eat what you want but they teach you how to eat it and when. Sounds ridiculous, I know. Over the last 2 weeks I have eaten, with the exception of Dr. Pepper and sweets which are off limits for 3 weeks, Sonic, Cane’s, Homemade lasagna, frozen lasagna, fried chicken, cornbread, bacon….I could go on. All the things I like without much thought to it. I’ve exercised less than usual, instead of trying to burn 500-600 calories 4 times a week I’ve tried to simply move more. I’m getting in walks with the kids, working out with them; averaging an actual work out 3 times a week with about a 300 calorie burn. I’ve been happy and relaxed. I don’t have to worry so much.
Without much thought and with incredible ease, sticking to this program, I’ve lost 9.5 pounds and a total of 6.75 inches. This was just after 2 weeks. I don't measure again until 3. This may not be a forever solution but it certainly proves that what I was doing “wrong” had not much to do with any of the things I’ve tried before.
These numbers aren’t typical but they give me hope that maybe I’m not a complete failure after all. Maybe there’s hope for me to actually be a healthy person and weight and still be normal and in a relative good mood.
Don’t trip up on those numbers. They might seem impressive if you’re comparing yourself to someone else, even me. Don’t do that. I’m saying that if you’ve lived your life trying to get to a certain weight, feeling guilty like you’re never going to be healthy, that you’re just destined to be a chubby sloth your whole life, step back. Ask yourself why you care so much and what can be done about it. Do you care about it because you have skinny friends? Do you care about it because it’s trendy and popular? Do you obsess and count and try and try because it’s what we’re supposed to do as grown women? Because I hope you see that’s kind of messed up.
You are made in His image. Those numbers, the size on the tag in your pants, the number on the scale, the calories you burn or consume, how many check-ins your friend has at the gym, they don’t matter. Most of them are a completely inaccurate way to gauge your success.
They don’t matter. You matter. Your age, your metabolism, your weight; these in no way measure your worth. You are only awkward, or ugly, or fat, or flabby if you force yourself into a comparison situation. If you want to make a change, make it. I beg you not to do it because you think you are somehow unworthy or less. Don’t listen to that ugly voice shouting guilt and remorse in your ear. Find what works and do it because you’re you and you want to be the best you God made you to be.
