Wednesday 5 December 2012

Hate-hate relationship.

Wednesday 5 December 2012
One thing abundantly clear: I hate myself and treat myself horribly. I'm trying to learn how not to, but it is a constant struggle.

I see myself as lazy, stupid, easily distracted and easily sabotaged. Oh, and don't forget ugly.

My body is a reflection of how I see myself.

I can trick the world into thinking my face is not half bad through cosmetics and a clever photo angle, but I see a different version of me. The one that is sans makeup, the one that is looking square on. The one that has bright red skin and a double chin, that is stressing over a pair of size 18+ trousers being a wee bit too tight and dealing with the humiliation of a new stretch mark appearing on a mistreated stomach.

The one that weighs One Hundred and Ten Kilos (give or take. It's been a while since I weighed myself).

Step One to get over this is adopting the 'fake it til you make it' mantra. I'm following my babe restoration project rules - heading off to get a fresh manicure at lunch time. More beauty treatments tomorrow after work. I'm pretending to be a fit and healthy person - walking to work, getting a PT session in and will walk home again afterwards.

Not sure what Step Two is, so I'll just keep going with Step One until I find myself fit and healthy.

Maybe we need to set a performance indicator for 'fit and healthy' how will I know I've reached it? What does fit and healthy look like and mean to you?

How does one learn to like oneself? It seems I knew once, but have forgotten now.

4 comments:

Teagan said...

If you ever learn I'd love you to teach me.

Alison said...

1 step and some grim determination is all you really need. Though I'm not there yet so I can't really say. Maybe step 2 is to ask for help if step 1 is getting too hard to handle alone. It's a lonely journey to make a lot of the time because it feels so in your head.

I'm working on the trying to like myself too, the intellectual side I'm largely ok with but the physical side is kind of lacking. I get quickly frustrated when injured and constantly paranoid about parts failing at the most inconvenient time.

Snoskred said...

Alison is right about determination. And you need some stubborn-ness too, and you have to be willing to kick your own butt.

You have to say to yourself - this is what I am going to do - and then you have to do it, no matter how much your mind will try to sabotage you. And your mind will try to do that. Your mind will try to talk you out of going to the gym or say it is ok to eat this unhealthy thing.

But you can change those messages in your mind, if you work at it.

I've been doing the Lite N Easy for a while now, and occasionally I will want a snack that I should not have. This is usually potato chips. I weigh them and know how much they will cost me calorie wise, and I swap out one of my snacks for them.

And even as I am sitting down to eat them, my mind is saying "Are you sure you want to do this? Don't you think it would be better to eat the other, more healthy snack? You spent X time at the gym today, and now you want to put this junk into your body?"

And sometimes I say to my mind - yes, I am going to eat these and you'll just have to get over it. And sometimes I say to my mind ok, you are right, and I put them back in the packet and go get the more healthy snack.

But this is huge progress because 4 or 5 weeks ago, my mind would not have even said anything to me if I sat down to eat potato chips.

I find it is a lot easier for me when I have the food supplied to me and I know this is what I am meant to eat. I suspect when I decide to finish doing L&E it is going to become more difficult for me.

What does fit and healthy look like to me? It does not look like a supermodel. :)

It looks like I can do a half hour worth of exercise and feel good at the end of it instead of exhausted.

It looks like I can walk up a couple flights of stairs without that woozy dizzy out of breath feeling.

It is somewhere between size 12-14 - at least for me. If I go below that I look unhealthy - my cheekbones pop out of my skull.

It means my spare tire (I carry my weight like a beer belly on a man) is not noticeable to me in regular daily life.

How does one learn to like ones self? Well this is a more difficult thing. For me, I have to be honest with myself and I have to hold myself accountable.

I wish I could magic wand this for you, I truly do. But getting fit and healthy is not fun for most of us. The watching what I eat and exercising - it is not something I get excited about.

I know there are people on this planet who wake up and think "I'm gonna go kick butt at the gym today" and are all happy about it. I'm not one of them. I get on the machine and watch the minutes tick down and the calories burned go up until I don't have to do it again until tomorrow or the next time.

This is one reason I have been blogging a lot of it, because it is my way of holding myself accountable.

ysabet said...

I have a set of goalposts for 'fit and healthy' - which are subject to review based upon circumstance.

Healthy: under 70kgs, under 30% bodyfat. The former I've achieved as an adult, the latter, not so much. I'm not doing too badly; the dress I wore to celebrate my 11th wedding anniversary was also a dress I wore on my wedding day. There is definitely room for improvement, however. About 16kgs worth of room.

Fit: Able to run 5km in about half an hour. Deadlift my own bodyweight (preferably more). Able to do ONE chinup. Able to do a set of full pushups.

These are, however, *my* goalposts, if not my desired endpoint goals, which are rather more ambitious.

As for liking myself - I used to regard myself as so utterly loathsome, I didn't deserve to suicide, because that wouldn't be punishment enough for the horrible person that I was. Yeah. I was not in a happy place.

Today, whilst I spend a lot of my conscious time railing against how utterly broken and fucked up my body is, I do actually think I'm a pretty awesome person. This has largely been the result of 12 years of the dearly beloved saying so multiple times a day, and also some fairly heavy work on dealing with how I felt about myself, and with how I reacted to things. I still frustrate myself a lot, but overall, I'm a lot happier with the person I am than I used to be.