...weak for wine, weak for pasta, weak for popcorn with real butter, weak for sad movies, weak for workshops that keep one away from the gym, weak for avocados, weak for mayo, what the heck, weak for bacon, weak for feeling sorry for me sad sad self and the results? A week of not so great results.
Whatever the scale said on that triumphant day last week, whatever was trumpheted all over the internet and the boastful blog-world, reverse it, subtract two or, God forbid three and. let's just carry on. That's the ticket in this game, carry on....
Tomorrow is Febuary 1st, a new month, new new page on the calender. We are all weak, we all fail to one degree or another. I refuse to beat myself up. I look forward to tomorrow and, no, I don't go to the fridge tonigh and comfort myself with food. I'm still ahead of the game. I'm still in the playing field and, you know what? I'm still going to win. I'll deliver more concrete information mid way through week five. It's all a'coming and my arms (firmer, less flabby) are open wide. Bring on the new month. Damn the poundage. Bless the air that I breath, the people that I love, and moving right along, I look ahead to the future. Move, move, move. All with gratitude, all with love, and with particularly fond memories of Craig, who crossed over this time a decade ago but whom I swear I saw in NYC last September, arm-in-arm with his lover.
M
Nine. That's the number. Nine. Nine-nine-nine. I have lost nine pounds and, yes, that is on Korezone's own Ikea scale, the one I used to loath and today, like the fickle woman I am, love! (Ikea people, put your logo on my blog, sell more happy scales).
I can't write much today because there is too much other stuff going on, but I do want to say a word about time and money. First of all time: You have to make it happen. The Korezone gym folk are on the other side of town from me. It's a drive, well, a 20 minute drive sans traffic. It's not that far. And I do make time because everytime I go through those doors, I'm greeted by a friendly, fit person who knows my name. Yes, they are young, yes, they are lovely, no they don't have too much in common with a chubby, middle-age lady, but they are kind, compassionate people who care about my fitness and strenght. In fact the Korezone mottos are "Strenght from Within" and "Share the Love," which they are good at doing.
I have yet to post a definative number. I don't yet have a photo. What I have is this:
I chose to go away this weekend for a writing workshop and to see some friends. It was out of the city, a new experience, heightened as they are by fresh faces, fresh ground, the excitment of being "out and about." And it was good...
Like all journey's coming home should be the best part. And, yes, it was.
I saw those dear, dear faces my husband, my three children through the fog of the pasta pot, perking away, white sauce simmering on the stove, all creamy and caloric. Now how can one, coming off a long and difficult highway, complain when they walk in the door to supper already made? How can one? No one must be gracious, peel some vegetable, place them on the table and join their family in whatever they have prepared, be it cream, flour, butter, white pasta, or some other rich and thigh inflating concoction. And so I did. Both biting my tounge and salivating like a wild animal (yes, it is possible to do both of those private mouth acts at the same time) I tried to heed my husbands advice to "just take a small amount." And, to some degree it worked. I ate mindfully if not entirely happily. I would have been all right, too, if I hadn't kept adding wine to the already potent mix of pasta and deliciously flavored fat-sauce. I will say no more except to say tomorrow is another day. Tonight, with Mother the fat Nazi back, it will be poached fish and steamed beans and if you're good, very very good, a side of wild rice. Balance, balance, balance and no one ever said it would be easy. Tomorrow is the last day of crash, three sets, endless repetitions, and a promise to step on their loathsome scale and come in with an "end of week three" weigh-in. More later from Sabotage City and the Filler' up Vineyard,
M
There it was when I came downstairs this morning, a perfect, golden loaf of white (gawk!!) bread. Perfect. Still warm, crusty on top, beautifully aromatic, and, yes, calling my name: “Margaret, Margaret,” it wooed. “Cut me open. Come. Take. Eat.”
My husband made the bread last night. It wasn’t a problem last night. Last night my talking loaf of bread was just gluey gunk with yeast, a mass of white dough, not unlike the image my mirror has presented me with of late. (But, please, for your sake and mine, quickly erase that image.)
The challenge presented itself long after the bread had morphed into its own lovely breadiness. The challenge was hunger and morning and the knowledge that homemade bread spread thick with butter has always, and likely will always be, my comfort food.
What to do, what to do, what to do???
It’s not about the scale; it’s not about the numbers. The scale is not your friend. Do not let the scale dictate, for it will always lead you astray. Muscle weights more than fat. Muscle weights more than fat. Repeat after me: it’s not about the scale, muscle weights more than fat.
End of week two, and I don’t know if I weigh less than I did after the end of week one because the scales in my beautiful, light filled bathroom are different (read: lighter, happier, smarter) than the horrid, high, ridiculous scales at the gym.
I am trying not to think about the scales at the gym which have wiped out my triumphant 4.7 pound weight loss of the first week and replace it with an overall 5.1 pound weight loss at the end of this week. That would mean, this week I lost less than half a pound, but as I mentioned I am trying not to think about it that way.
If my goal is to loose one pound a week on average, I’m three pounds ahead of the game! Yes, that’s a better way to think. I’m three pounds up on my necessary per week weight loss.
Here I should say what I’m doing with my physical body. I have settled into a somewhat regular schedule at last. I am going to the gym to do weight training Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays. The knowledgeable folks at Korezone insist there should be a rest day in between strength training. A rest day is good. Very, very, good.
So far, so good. I just thought I should check in. Write down a few thoughts before they get away from me. One thought is my core. When Ashley, the personal trainer girl (woman? yes, she is a woman! just not an old crone like me and anyone else who has crossed the five-oh threshold) told me to engage my core, I honestly had to wonder if I had one. And that's what I'm seeking. A core. A core without the fleshy apple around it. Not a skeleton (that will happen soon enough) but a core, what I deem essential self. It's in there, I know, but it's long been buried. How many of us bury our essential selves under projects or work or deadlines or words or children or partners or, indeed, even the culmination of too much food, flesh? Somehow we are all afraid to be as big as we can be, and I mean that wholely in a metaphysical sense. Perhaps I am big physically because I am not big spiritually, or emotionally, or intellectually? Perhaps those are thing I am still afraid of. What about sexually? Do larger woman disguise their sexuality in flesh, or is that simply society telling us that sexuality is the negation of flesh and only thin, trim, fit women are allowed to have a good old-fashioned swampy romps?
One thing is certain, lifting the weights makes me feel strong. Going to the gym, I still avoid the mirrors for the most part. Sometime I see myself and I don't cringe because I like what I'm doing. It's like sculptin. My body is the block of marble and slowly I'm taking away, taking away until I find the form beneath. I can see it, sort of, who I want to become. And it's still me but smaller, healthier.
It’s working! I knew it would work, at least for the first few weeks!! (How did you guess, I've been down a similar road ?)
I am not sure it will still be working weeks from now in the deep freeze of February, or the flat monotone of March , or dripping, dog shit surfacing days of April and ever after. But, for now, it is working and I am here to say what is working, how it’s working and a little bit about the way I’m working.
I plan to write once a week, a reflection on the seven days spent, the successes and failures and up and downs of this journey. The title to this blog is key. The first 50 is what this writing is about. It’s a number, it’s a unit, it is what I have carried around on my hips and my belly and my backside and my upper arms (oh those bat winged upper arms!) for the last, oh, 15 years at least. It is the amount of weight in good old fashioned pounds I am attempting to loose in the course of the second 50 of the title, the time frame, the parameters of the project. Fifty weeks isn’t quite a year, but it’s close and the final 50, my age, is the why behind this reckless public muse.
I turned 50 two weeks before the turn of the year, thick in the season of eat and drink. A careful look in the mirror the morning of that milestone birthday gave me pause, to put it mildly. In fact, a look in the mirror-- a good, hard, naked-body, naked eyeball look, in a full length upright mirror – arrested me, stopped me dead in my tracks. I’m not talking cardiac arrest here, not yet, anyway, but rather a stock-still take stock shock.
