I am annoyed at myself.

I have lost and gained the same 14kg so many times in the past 12 years that I am bored.  I never go higher than 96kg or lower than 82kg.

I am comfortable!

Right now I am 92.something.  Not at my highest.  Way too comfortable.

I am simply not motivated to put in the effort required to lose weight.  I don’t tend to pile on weight quickly when I am ‘off track’ and in fact sometimes lose weight with no ‘effort’.

I know (as per my blog last week) that I will feel so much better at a healthy weight. 

But being at this weight doesn’t feel hard, only mildly inconvenient.

Mild inconvenience is not going to get me slim without some other motivation.

But I am having trouble finding it.

I read other peoples stories, I talk to people I know.  I love success stories.  I know my issues are mere matchsticks compared to the walls some people have had to get through to lose weight.  But when I read or hear a story about successful weight loss I think “well I wouldn’t / couldn’t make those sacrifices”.    The only success stories that I feel I could do are the ‘eat only when hungry’ ones.  But a big part of me feels that that approach won’t actually work.

I know the answers are in me, not in a blog or another person’s success.  I am just having trouble finding them.

I laugh about having an ‘overactive guilt gland’ but in reality it can be really hard to live with.

There is the family ‘bun story’ which is long and basically involves me (about age 10) confessing, sobbing, in the middle of the night about the bite of a bun I took 2 years earlier.  My parents reacted with laughter and have since repeated that story over and over again.

There is the difficulty in stopping ‘people pleasing’.  The guilt from saying ‘No’ far outweighs the pain of just keeping everyone happy.

Then there is today.  I was given a small piece of information at work that was required for work my team had been engaged to do.    I had a question related to that information so I emailed some people with my question and I included the information.

Literally one minute later I received an email in response to another I had sent saying that I was not allowed access to that piece of information and that my team was not to do the work. 

I ‘recalled’ my email but it was read by some people.

Even though I was not told the information was confidential until after I had sent my email, even though the person who gave it to me did not know it was confidential, even though I know I would not have sent it had I known, I feel incredibly guilty. 

And guilt makes me want to eat chocolate.  (I am resisting the urge)

I really feel I need to deal with my feelings of guilt.  It can’t be right to feel guilty about things that I know are out of my control.

Sometimes I write without purpose.

Then the purpose comes to me later.

Yesterday’s “Me” post was one of those.  Those paragraphs actually ‘appeared’ at the end of my “Failure Badge” blog.  I was not sure where they came from, but they certainly didn’t fit that topic so I created a second blog.

Then this morning I had an ‘aha’ moment.

I think that everybody approaches their journey to the best version of themselves differently.  There is never a right or wrong way.  We all know calories in must be less than calories out in order to lose weight.  Other than that the paths are many and varied.

I think there are also different results even when you meet your ‘goal’.  For example you can be 65kg and do very little exercise.  You will need to eat a little less to maintain that weight.  You will have less muscle definition.  (Not necessarily compared to someone else, but compared to the version of you who exercised).  Or you can be a 65kg gym regular.  Given muscle takes up less room than fat you may be slightly smaller than the non exercising version of you.  You may be able to eat a little more and still maintain your weight.  You are more likely to be toned.  Neither of these options is better or worse than the other. 

For me I really think about 2 ‘paths’.  In reality the actions are identical, but the thoughts and motivation differ.

My two paths are “food” and “exercise”. 

“Food” path focuses on eating the right things to get to goal weight.  Exercise is a support activity to help burn more calories and improve my appearance.

“Exercise” path focuses on exercise goals.  Eating right and losing weight are the support activities.  Eating for fuel and losing weight to make exercise more enjoyable and pain free.

So when I blogged yesterday about not knowing who I was and wanted to be, it really came back to this.

I was a slim teenager who did minimal exercise.  I was really lacking in co-ordination, hand-eye especially.  And being Australia the focus at school was nearly always on team sports involving balls… not really my thing!  Being the 80’s I did do aerobics once a week for a while… but that soon became just an excuse to meet the guys from the gym room afterwards! 

In my 20’s I did pretty much no exercise.  I got to WW goal (yep, I am a lifetime member in the UK) with only incidental exercise.  Being without a car in the UK meant there was a fair bit of incidental exercise I admit.  But I still did nothing ‘extra’.

In my early 30’s I required a knee reconstruction.  After the surgery I was on a strict rehabilitation exercise program and ‘accidentally’ lost 10kg.  And discovered I loved to ride my bike!  After that I got a personal trainer who came to my house twice a week.  And discovered I loved running!

I have never actually been slim and fit at the same time.

This morning the image of how I want to be when I am slim came to me very clearly.

I want to be a runner.

I want to lose weight so that my joints hurt less.  I want to eat right to fuel my body.  I want a runner’s body, slim and toned.  I want to do weights and cross train to reduce injury.

The plan changes not at all.  Weight Watchers and floor work to strengthen my hip and core until I can start doing more cardio.  Short walks until I can start the C25K again.  But I feel more motivated and focussed.

My first goal is the 14km ‘run4thekids’ race which is next in March/April 2011.  But if I reach this goal the year following that is fine too – as long as I am happy I have done everything I can to reach it.  I know I have to be patient with my hip.

Wow, long blog!  Well done if you read this far!

I am easily swayed.  If I talk to my step brother about triathlons I want to take part.  Last nights Australian TBL with them running a marathon makes me want to run a marathon.  Women who embrace their size make me want to be more accepting of myself.  Women who dress with individuality and flair make me want to do the same. 

I need to have a much stronger picture of who I am.  I used to.  It got lost somewhere in the past 10 years. 

I know who I want to be on the inside.  But what I don’t know is how I want that to be shown. 

I can’t picture a slim me without trying to paste my head on someone else’s body.

Sometimes I feel that looking from the outside it would seem my one big ‘failure’ is my weight.  I have a good home, job, marriage, family etc.

And I have this weird and kind of contradictory set of feelings about that.

If I eliminate my one easy-for-the-entire-world-to-see fault, am I then misrepresenting myself as a success?  It seems ‘wrong’ to be seen as a success when I feel like somewhere between a failure and ‘average’.  (Oh yes, I know this is completely illogical).  Will people have higher expectations of me?  Will people dislike me?  Will I dislike me?  Will I become obnoxious and painful without my weight to keep me lacking in confidence?  I am already very self absorbed.  What if that gets worse?

But what if I really can’t do this?  What if I just keep trying and failing?  Can I live with more failure at this one thing I have been ‘trying’ to succeed at for more than 20 years?

So my illogical and fairly random brain is terrified of failure at the same time as being terrified of losing my ‘failure’ badge.

I tell myself how illogical both of these fears are.  After all I know that people see my other faults (I asked :p).  I remind myself that slim people are everywhere and not all of them are successful.  I remind myself that I have 20 years of failure to keep me grounded even when I finally succeed.  I remind myself that fearing failure causes failure.  I need to believe I can succeed.

And I hope that the logic will win.

I find it interesting that I have been choosing a known, familiar discomfort over a new but lesser one.

The ‘new’ discomfort (ie sticking to WW points and exercising) has a wonderful reward.  Many wonderful rewards actually.  Physical, emotional, mental rewards.

And I have always believed that I love change.

But in this case I have continuously returned to the familiar regardless of the fact that being obese is not easier than losing weight and losing weight has so many rewards.

Interesting.

Craig Harper wrote a great blog that arrived in my in box this morning.

His Hypothesis: There is a positive correlation between how uncomfortable an individual is prepared to get and their likelihood of success – irrespective of the field of endeavour

This really hit home with me.  I have talked before about how I keep choosing the discomfort of my weight over the discomfort of changing it.

This weekend I had an uncomfortable conversation with Ian.  Uncomfortable for me.  We talked about my health.  He thinks I need to see a new doctor.  He believes my current doctor keeps piling on new diagnoses without actually making anything better.  I am torn.  In some ways he is right.  But also I think the diagnoses have been accurate.  He thinks I should see another doctor and get a second opinion.  Which led me to react with an immediate and telling thought: “a new doctor will just tell me to lose weight and see what improves”. 

Please excuse my momentary indulgence while, for my own piece of mind, I review what my doctor has diagnosed and why I think she is or isn’t right.  Then I will write about my weight.

PCOS: this was accurate at the time.  My blood tests and an ultrasound clearly showed I had a large number of the factors that make up this syndrome.  Lately some results have been different so I believe it is currently under control.  Maybe I never had it. 

COELIAC: this was never actually diagnosed with a biopsy.  But it was diagnosed through blood tests.  And I get sick when I eat gluten.  I sometimes have doubts due to the lack of a biopsy.  But nobody else has any doubts (including Ian) and the only way to get a positive biopsy would be to eat gluten for about 1 month then get tested.  I don’t think I or my marriage would survive that.

ADD: this one bothers me.  I think I do have it but very mildly.  I must admit that when I don’t take the medication I feel the diagnosis is accurate.  It certainly does improve my stress, anxiety and ability to think.   But I am still slightly uncomfortable with the diagnosis.

Symptoms not resolved:

Stress and anxiety - reduced but not resolved.  This makes sense.  I find out this week if Dad’s cancer is back/spread. Also Ian’s ‘guaranteed 20 hours per week’ turned out to be a lie.  This week he has been given 3 days off ON TOP of the Easter break.  So money is tight and I don’t deal well with that.

Tiredness – this has been a chronic issue for me.  My blood tests were all normal.  I am not sure what is causing it other than the stress and anxiety.  Oh and my obesity. 

Looking at that I don’t think my doctor is doing a bad job. 

This brings me back to my weight.  How can I keep asking ‘why do I feel like this?’ when I KNOW that my weight is a factor in some areas.  I am carrying an extra 25kg above the TOP of my healthy weight range.

Things I KNOW are caused by my obesity:

High blood pressure

Insulin sensitivity

Tiredness

Joint and muscle pain

Hormone imbalances

Anger at myself

Low self esteem

And that doesn’t touch on all the diseases that obese people are at much higher risk of getting.

So while it may appear that I am staying ‘comfortable’ by not making an effort to lose weight, my weight is actually causing many discomforts.

Because I have been obese most of my adult life I think I am numbed to how bad it actually makes me physically feel.

And what does this mean?

Quite simply: I need to get off my fat backside and do something about my weight.  Being obese is NOT comfortable. 

To (probably mis) quote a great saying I have posted before:

Being overweight is hard.  Losing weight is hard.  Choose your hard.