Not a Diet

THIS IS NOT A DIET. I REPEAT: THIS IS NOT A DIET.

You know why? Because diets don't work. They don't. What's that, you say? Your cousin lost 36lbs in a month by eating nothing but steak and peanut oil? That's nice. Ask her what happens when she gives in and eats a crouton and gains 45lbs overnight.

That being said, I've joined sparkpeople.com. If you're not familiar with the site, I recommend you go over and check it out--it's full of nifty tools and like-minded people and (best of all!) it's free. Yep, you heard me. 100% free to the public.

No, it's not a diet (weren't you listening?!) It's a way for me to easily keep track of what I eat and how much activity I get without hauling around a notebook and losing track of keeping journal entries. The nutrition tracker is super easy to use; after you enter in all of your specifics (height, weight, goals, etc.) it gives you a target number of calories, fat, protein, and carbs to stay within for the day. You log the foods you eat and it tells you how "on target" you are for the day. Pretty sweet, huh?

So, if I'm blogging about learning to love myself as I am, why did I join this site and set weight loss goals for myself? I will tell you why. Because, despite this lovely blog and its lovely followers, I am not happy with myself. Mostly because I don't really feel as healthy as I once did (probably an indication that I am, in fact, not as healthy as I once was) and want to get back to a point where, if I don't feel like I look good, at least I can say that I feel okay.

So Leslie Sansone and I walk/jogged this morning for a half an hour, I signed up for SparkPeople, and I watched what I ate all day. Not rocket science. Gotta tell you, though, when it comes to wake-up work-out personalities, I'm not Leslie's biggest fan. Yeah, Jillian Michaels gets annoying because she's so intense (and also because her workouts cause my life to flash before my eyes) and yells at the screen with things like "This is you last circuit! DON'T PHONE IT IN! NO REGRETS! LEAVE EVERYTHING IN THIS WORKOUT! LEAVE IT ALL!!!!!" And well...that's a little scary.

But Leslie Sansone is just so damn cheerful! She's giggling her way through her movements and telling me, "Doesn't it feel soooo good to get up and walk this morning?! I'm so glad you joined me and said 'I'm walkin' today!' I just love to hear you say that!"

Leslie, if I were in charge of such things, I would still be in bed, weighing 140lbs and never feeling the urge to pop in your DVD. Sorry, bub, that's just the way it works in my head. I also didn't say "I'm walkin' today" for your benefit. That decision was made on how much time was available for a workout this morning and how much I didn't want to hear Jillian yelling at me. Chill your life and tone down the enthusiasm.

But anyway, my goals aren't astronomical. I want to be a size 14 again--that's all. We've had a long-standing love/hate relationship, me and size 14. When I was a size 14, all I could think about was how close I was to a 12 and how I would be happiest if I could just dip down to a 12 or (gasp) maybe even someday a 10! Size 14 was just an inconvenient, seemingly ENORMOUS roadblock between me and true fashion bliss. *sigh* Oh the innocence of youth. But like with most things, absence makes the heart grow fonder. The longer we've spent apart the more I've come to realize that it's the size at which I'm the most comfortable, and the size I was when I came the closest to really enjoying the way I looked.

Rereading what I just wrote, it looks like I'm missing the point of my own blog, doesn't it? I don't think that's the case (though please feel free, gentle readers, to call me out on this one.) There is a vague hope that if I can get back to size 14 and still impress myself by reaching a personal goal or two, it may do wonders for my self-loathing body image issues.

Call it a baby step toward loving all of me all the time.