My Math Sucks

and other random Jan 2 thoughts, some of which related to fitness and nutrition...


My math sucks, and it has sucked, my whole life. I got through high school all right, with a GPA of 6.0 (of a max of 6.0) because I got my math done by the guys, in exchange for A+ worthy argumentative essays in English as a second language. Calculators have always been there for me and before that we had these:


So here I am, googling "lbs to kg" trying to free my head of the three digit monster that was my weight on the scale...this morning, that is the morning of Jan 2, 2009, 6 months after I stopped working out.

I will spare myself (and you) the detailed story of WHY I stopped working out, since it's heavy on drama and even heavier on Kleenex, and I will just say, in the words of my shrink, that "that's life" and "sometimes things happen in the growing up process that may leave us quite surprised at who we really are" and "that to build something new you need to destroy the old to make space for it". One ended marriage, one ended business, one ended home, and one ended year later, I am ready to move on from "having fat is interesting, I've never had that before", to "okay life is not kicking my ass anymore, so it's about time to step on the scale..."

The scale said 134.6. If that was metric, I would be dead, or a whale...but it's not...so I'll likely live through this, at least until I find out what it is in metric. Then I might have an aneurism, because...

I know that's a lot, I know women that weight that and they pay me well to help them lose fat, so it must be a lot....I know that's a lot, because my very baggy linen pants are not so baggy anymore. I know it's a lot because I was 126 in spring and I was 120 in Cayman, and I was 118 when I was small and happy with my legs... I know it's a lot, because I only see the outline of my abs if the light's right and I know it's a lot because I really really haven't been looking or caring. I've been busy surviving. When life looks you in the face while its ugly twin sister is kicking your butt, you don't really care about fat. When you don't know if you slept or ate or if it's Monday or Friday, you really don't remember what calipers were either...

But I'm not surviving anymore, so it was time to look and find out. It's not like I freaked out until I found that google converter and finally got the number down to 61. something...and went...****, that's a lot for a small chickie.

Or is it?

My body's been very kind to have packed the fat well and pretty. I went through a huge hormonal crash where my pituitary took a long vacation and was not signalling my body to do anything but : "ground". So it grounded me. The months of July, August and September were months of imminent extinction for a few million hazelnuts and a few hundred balls of mozzarella. I didn't eat bad foods, I just ate more good foods than my bed ridden dragging remains of a body could deal with. And my mind was starving for answers, so they came ready, in neat little bags of nuts, packets of cheese and what I believe is the biggest jar of all natural peanut butter that ever inhabited the otherwise clean shelves of my tiny kitchen. I believe I put on over 10 lbs in 2 weeks in the form of very hard and not at all flabby fat. Most of my friends never noticed. I did, but I just rolled with it (no pun intended).

So is 61.something kilograms a lot...I don't know. Compared to when? Compared to who?

I did start working out a few weeks ago and to my amazement I can still do chin ups and pull ups. They come in singles, but they come. I can still deadlift 150 lbs, well below my 220 potential, but who cares...and I can still hold a plank...well. sort of.

But I've been so cured of the " I must" mantality now...I am so not willing to take the pressure or losing 1 lb a week for a contest, for my work, for a client, because I need to take it slow, enjoy it and make it work for me and my happiness.

So why am I freaking out, now in metric? Because I know how much work it's going to take. I know how much time it's going to take...to do this...

S

L

O

W

I am totally willing to give myself time. Take it slow. Freak out slow.

So I need to lose anywhere from 10 to 15 lbs. 10 sounds very good right now. 1 lb a week is 3 months. 0.5 lb a week is 6 months. I like this. I am not freaking out anymore. I need to google 0.5 lbs to kg to calm down even more. My math sucks, remember?

I am calm and happy. I have faith. I have no plan, since my body knows what to do. My appetite is very normal, getting me around 1300-1500 cals on most days. I fast some days, when I'm not hungry, so that works great. I am not doing anything with a goal in mind this time, I find this to be a great chance to look at things like we do at natural and spontaneous language acquisition, one word, one phrase at a time, until the paper doesn't look like random gibberish anymore, but foreign words start to clump into meaningful phrases, titles make you smile and you start buying the local paper in that once foreign language you now speak, without cramming grammar for days on end, very much like we cram workouts or torture ourselves with diet, just to prove that we're worthy of calling ourselves thin, pretty, strong, sexy...it's all an ego trip, like learning Spanish in 3 months. Can I do it...sure...will I...hell no :)

So I wrap this up with the same lack of urgency to change my body that I feel towards learning the language of Cervantes, and taken by the same craziness that Don Quixote might have experienced not knowing what's ahead of him, but knowing he's going there, all ramifications aside.