I’ve been wanting to lose weight for quite some time. Pretty much my whole life, actually. My mom put me on a diet when I was seven, saying that I had ‘such a pretty face’ that it was too bad I was so fat. Those might not have been the exact words, but that was the underlying sentiment. For the next quarter of a century, that was something that came up all the goddamn fucking time. She rattled on and on about my weight, and she couldn’t even pretend it was about my health. Well, she could try, but I was smart enough to notice that when I was in my anorexic phases, the only comments she made were of jealousy–such that I had a smaller waist than she did. It was very easy to see that it wasn’t about health–it was solely about looks and weight. I had to tell her in explicit terms in my…wanna say early thirties that she was not to mention my weight at all. She did not take kindly to that, but I didn’t care.
In the past few years, I’ve become painfully cognizant of how fat I am. I mean, I know I’m fat. It’s not a surprise. As much as I try not to look in the mirror, I still catch myself on occasion. Most of the time, I quickly look away. However, once in a while, I stare in horror before looking away again. I hate the way I look except for my hair. Love my hair. Which is still growing. It’s a hoot and an amazement given that it didn’t grow for two decades.
I will state that I don’t give a shit about my health. Well, not overtly, anyway. It’s a big by-product of doing taiji, but I never paid it no mind. I only cared about the martial arts aspect, and if it was good for my health and mental health, well, then that was an added bonus.
Anyway, I’m trying to cut down on meat as I mentioned in my previous post. I used to eat two to three servings a day, and I’m down to one or two. My ideal is two to three a week for now, but it’s still early days yet. I just had the last of the Beyond Italian Sausages, and I’m sad that I don’t have any more. They were so incredibly juicy and had a nice spice to them. They tasted exactly like Italian sausages, and I would gladly sub them for meat any day of the week. I have a package of ground ‘beef’ (also Beyond) in the freezer that I’ll fry up later in the week.
In addition, I’m boosting my fruit intake. Blueberries and blackberries for the win! My brother dropped by today, and he was waxing rhapsodic about strawberries. I had given up on strawberries years ago because they were not sweet any longer. I tried pint after pint, only to be disappointed. He said the ones at CostCo, Driscoll’s organic, were so sweet they were like strawberry candy. I’ll give it another go because I love strawberries. Oh! I also have cherries right now which are my absolute favorite. Gotta be careful with them, however, because they don’t always sit well in my stomach.
My point is, I have to trick my brain into doing anything eating/diet-wise. Because of my history with eating disorders, I have to be careful how I approach weight-loss. I can’t count calories or involve any numbers, really, including pounds and inches. Anything that smacks of dieting is enough to send me over the edge. In addition, diets don’t work if they don’t include lifestyle changes. What I mean is that if you do something thinking that you can do it for a short amount of time and then go back to your regular way of being, well, the loss won’t be permanent.
My lifehack for getting around the obstacles in my brain is to focus on one change at a time. It may be a big one, but it’s still one change. Such as when I cut out all dairy and gluten from my diet. Ok, that’s two things and not one, but it’s the same mentality. I cut out all gluten and dairy, and I didn’t worry about anything else. Same with caffeine, which I did in increments because I knew how bloody awful it was going to be. I cut down rather than cut out, and that’s the same with meat. I knew I couldn’t just go cold turkey (ha), so I did it in the way that I thought would give me the best chance of success. It hasn’t been difficult yet because I have a bunch of frozen food that has meat in it, but once that is gone….
Which comes to my other point. I’m going to try to do simple cooking. This has been a bugaboo for most of my life. I know how to cook, and I used to enjoy baking, but I haven’t done any real cooking in decades. Quite simply, I hate it. I also hate that it’s become a thing now, but that most cooking channels/websites assume a basic knowledge that I don’t have. That’s what stopped me with the Instapot, and I can see it doing more so in the future. In addition, with all my dietary restrictions, it’s hard to find recipes that work. Not only am I dairy-free and gluten-free, I am NOT a vegan (yet), and I am eschewing garlic and onions for the most part. Grapes also are not good for me.
In addition, it’s harder to use online delivery for cooking. If I’m serious about it, I’ll probably have to start going to the grocery store. I have yet to make it to the co-op, and that’s a problem. It’s both a ‘Rona thing and an energy thing. I’ve been feeling especially debilitated this past week (probably in part because of the heat), and the idea of going to the co-op drains me.
Still. I feel good that I’m making changes. I also want to cut out chips, but I’m putting that on hold for now. I know I get overwhelmed if I do too much at once, so I want to get the meat/vegetables thing under control first. Then, I’ll tackle the saltiness of chips. Hey, I did it once before, and I can do it again.