The reason I am telling you this is really in tune with my
New Year’s ideas. The new season of this
show is about to begin, probably in an effort to maximize everyone’s newly made
resolutions. Recently, of course, I
have been talking with my friends about resolutions and have declared that I no
longer make them. I stopped doing it a
few years ago, actually, in a bout of self-reflection when I realized that I
have never actually kept any resolutions that I have made. Not really, anyway. These days I make only one “resolution:” to
continue setting small, achievable goals either daily and/or weekly. I have found, by doing this, I have taken a
lot of the stress out of my life caused by feeling like I’m never getting
things on my to-do list done. I have
created a more productive environment for myself where I also celebrate my
small victories. This is actually a
lesson I have gleaned from having a 1 year old: small achievable goals and
small victories. You learn to really live in the moment and celebrate the
little things when you are with a 1 year old all day, because that is the
sphere in which they exist. I put the
block on that stack successfully: round of applause! I put the book back in the basket: round of
applause! I washed the dishes AND
showered during her naptime: mini dance party!
Small achievable goals have changed my way of thinking about my
life. I don’t feel bogged down by my
to-do list anymore, I often just feel motivated to see what I can accomplish in
a one or two hour span of time, depending on how long naptime lasts J
In terms of weight loss, though, I will say that this was a
drag for me for a while. Although I have
never been overweight per se, after I had the kiddo, I definitely felt like I
would never look the way I used to. I
didn’t show a lot of my weight gain until after I had kiddo and, I guess,
everything kind of took its time to settle in. It didn’t help that I had to
have a C-Section due to Savannah’s size and breech position, destroying any and
all of the core that I had spent so long developing in my Pilates
training. My surgery not only destroyed
my core, but between that, the nursing, and my tendency to hunch over due to my
large bust, I had developed a lot of pretty detrimental back issues. It took over 4 months of chiropractic
rehabilitation and physical therapy to help me get back to place where I could
begin some meaningful physical activity. After several months, even though I was eating
pretty well, I still wasn’t doing enough exercise because I was at home alone
with the baby, often for weeks on end, just trying to get a shower and a meal
in when I could. I began looking for a
job to break the monotony, then getting very frustrated that I couldn’t find
anything over the course of many months.
The quiet I found on the job front really deflated my sails and made the
weight gain feel like an even bigger problem.
I hated the way I looked both in and out of clothes, I actually hated it
when Ryan told me how sexy he thought I was, and I dreaded the idea of going
anywhere where I might see people I knew because I didn’t feel comfortable in
my own skin. Even then, I knew that
these feelings were fueled more by where my head was and less by what my body
actually looked like. I just could not
get out of that negative space that was telling me I didn’t have control over
anything and I cursed our social culture for contributing to my sense of
physical discord.
Then, one day, cruising the Facebook walls during one of
Savannah’s naps, I stumbled upon this blog post that a friend of mine had
shared. It totally changed my
perspective and snapped me out of my funk, so to speak. I don’t always take the time to read the
articles or posts that are shared on Facebook – sometimes I put a mental
bookmark in the posts that look particularly interesting to me, because I
simply don’t have the time to read them at the moment. But something about this post felt different,
so I clicked the link right then and read on.
By the end, I felt so silly and wasteful about the way I had been
viewing myself. The author speaks about
how after the birth of her second child, she found herself avoiding pictures
with her kids because she didn’t like the way she looked, she hadn’t lost her
baby weight yet and it felt more important to document her children’s
experiences than to get in the pictures herself. At another child’s birthday party, her
daughter begged her to get into the photo booth and Mom immediately felt
uncomfortable. She realized, that day,
that she was being selfish by excluding herself from pictures with her children
because she was robbing them of their ability to have keepsakes and visual
proofs of their childhood moments with her.
As an adult, I don’t know many people who don’t cling to pictures of
themselves from their early childhood, especially with their parents in the
picture. My favorite pictures include my
mother, who also was sometimes shy about being in a picture because she has always
been self-conscious about her teeth. I
am so grateful for the pictures I have with her in them and always wished there
were more of them. I immediately flashed
forward to my own life, where I am continuously avoiding pictures with my kiddo
because I can’t stop thinking about looking back at these pictures and loathing
the way I look. What a selfish thought,
when compared with the idea that my daughter could have pictures of the two of
us together, especially at a time when it is just her and I 100% of the
time. Being a daughter, I know how
vitally important it is as the mother of a little girl to create positive and
realistic views of ourselves as women. I
have a responsibility as her mom and as an independent, free-thinking, bad ass
woman to demonstrate and exemplify healthy images of myself that she can mirror
back on her own self. If you’d have
asked me even just a couple of years ago, I would have said this same thing –
but somewhere between going into labor and the present day I kind of lost my
way.
In that moment, I felt this release. It almost felt like a physical reaction. It’s difficult to describe, but my skin
prickled by the end of the article and I felt, all at once, lighter. Like that figurative weight was lifted – only
literally. That day, I took a series of
pictures of me and the kiddo and felt so good about it. And I really noticed her looking at me like I
had never seen before. I was changing my
clothes for the day as she sat on the floor just watching me, with this look of
awe and pure love on her face. It was like
I was finally seeing myself in the mirror as she has been looking at me all
along. She doesn’t see love handles,
surgery scars or cellulite. She sees her
Mama, a vision of womanhood, all that is
represented by having those X chromosomes.
In that moment, I felt both pride in her and my realization and shame at having missed
this all along. Never
again – only positive images and definitely no more thinking out loud about how
I don’t like how these jeans fit here or how this shirt doesn’t hang right there. After a couple weeks passed, I noticed that
my pants were starting to get looser and I was now able to finally fit back
into my pre-pregnancy pants. I
immediately stepped on the scale and saw that I had lost 6 pounds! Since reading the article, I have lost a
total of 11 pounds. I have, of course,
changed my diet and started doing Pilates more regularly. Plus, being a single mom, trying to keep the
house together, the yard work done and chasing a very busy 15 month old girl
who never stops moving doesn’t hurt.
But, really, I have been doing a lot of these things all along. It really has felt like once I let go of the
thoughts and feelings that were weighing me down, I started to drop the
weight. I started focusing on my small,
achievable goals, started thinking more realistically about my lifestyle and
have really tried to do something active every day, even if it’s just taking 20
minutes to rake the yard. I feel so much
more confident and motivated!
Once I really started thinking about all of this, I realized
that I suppose this is sort of my pattern.
Several years ago, I had just gotten out of a really toxic relationship
that had gone on for too long and created a lot of deep scars…for both of us,
I’m sure. By the end of it, I had gained
about 10 or 15 pounds physically and felt at least 150 pounds overweight
emotionally. We spent a lot of time
dragging each other down, degrading one another and just emitting nothing by
negative energy. Once it was over, and
it took a while to really be over, I went through several days where I just
didn’t feel right. I kept rethinking my
decision, scared about the future because I had spent so many years with this
person and didn’t know anything else, but also scared about what might happen
to/for him. Fortunately, I lived with
two of my best friends in the world, who really helped drag me through those
days. One day, after a night out and a cathartic
reconnection with an old friend, I came home and had an emotional outburst
during which I sobbed uncontrollably.
After that, I felt that same skin-tingling, lightening sensation. It was like I pulled the trigger on the last
6 years. I felt that weight lift. Within about a month, I lost all of the
weight I had gained – and hadn’t changed a whole lot about my lifestyle. I was pretty broke back then, so overeating
was definitely not an option J I felt then the way I felt after I read the
article – like I had a new lease on life, like I had discovered a confidence I
never knew I could inhabit, like I was becoming the best version of
myself.
Discovering all of this over the last several months has
really given me insight into why I really get into The Biggest Loser. Maybe 6 months is too short a time to lose
100 pounds. Maybe working out 8-10 hours
a day in an enclosed environment where a diet is provided for you is an
unrealistic way to change your lifestyle.
But what those people learn about themselves, their demons, and the
things that are REALLY weighing them down?
That is for real and, I swear, is the real secret to their success. If you happen upon the show this season, or
if you are already a fan, think about past seasons or watch this season’s
contestants. There is always at least a
few, if not most of them, that experience that initial big loss because of the
simple change in lifestyle and then they plateau. Notoriously, weeks 2 and 3 are the hardest on
the scale because of this huge loss. It
is my belief, though, that these weeks are the hardest because that first week
represents their physical weight – their surface level weight. Because they haven’t started chipping away at
their emotional weight, they come to a stand-still. Once they have that first breakthrough moment
with their trainer, though, they miraculously lose a big chunk of weight. I’m no therapist and, in no way, have the
authority to hand out advice or instructions.
Also, in no way do I submit this as a true weight loss plan – you still
have to do the physical and dietary work.
But, for what it’s worth, here’s what I have learned for myself. Until you take hold of, recognize, vocalize,
and call out the heavy things you are clinging to with white knuckles, real
change can never happen. Once you are
aware of those heavy things, loosening your grip and ultimately letting go is
the hardest but most necessary part. We
can’t all have a Bob/Jillian/Dolvett in our corner, telling us to pick up the
speed on our literal or figurative treadmill.
Sometimes we can find that in the people around us and sometimes we just
have to be that for ourselves. And sometimes it shows up in the form of a
toddling, 15 month old girl with wide eyes and expectations of her Mama. Either way, set your first small achievable
goal today and see how it feels. And
really, start small. Put the laundry
away straight out of the dryer instead of waiting; walk up the two flights
instead of taking the elevator; show up early for one appointment or date. Whatever it is, immediately after, celebrate. Look in the mirror and smile, give yourself a
hug, do a 10 second dance party – whatever rocks your world. Just take a cue from my daughter and take a
second to enjoy the moment. It’s
addictive. Trust me.
