Preparing to think differently about weight

On the main blog I have written about my struggles with weight more than once. There have been many factors that led me to be overweight, and there are some things I have gotten better about, and some improvements I have made, but I am still overweight, and there is no secret about that.

I have been greatly affected recently by Twitter, and the expanded associations it has given me, especially with various youth whom I would not have encountered otherwise. That is also something I have written about some, and will write about more, but I have been focusing a lot lately on the issues of self-harm and eating disorders, which many of them suffer from.

I know that many of my previous attempts to lose weight have failed because my mind hasn't been right. There was too much depending emotionally upon the weight loss. For them, some of them lose a lot of weight, but they still can't succeed, because they don't have perspective on what they are really like or what they really need. There are high emotional stakes, but they are set up for failure.

I have a lot of reading and studying coming up where I hope to better understand how to help them, but some of that is going to have to be figuring out how to help me, and I realize a lot of it is going to be about perception. If they are binging to fill up emptiness, or purging to expel bad feelings, or cutting to take control of pain, I get that, but it won't work the way it would if they were going after the real pain and emptiness, instead of these things that are really symbolic, despite being devastatingly real. So, I need to come to grips with my own reality.

I assume that's going to be a multi-stage process, but my starting point is that for me, food was the one thing that I really let myself have, when I would neglect everything else, especially if anyone else needed anything. At the same time, my value and my worthiness of being loved was always tied in with the scale, and so the day when I would be worth something was always pushed off until I could lose weight, which was actually too much pressure.

I intellectually understand that my value as a person is not tied to my weight, but I also understand that society does tie them together a lot, and there are people who will devalue me for my extra pounds. I am also becoming more aware of girls and women who have bodies that are perfectly fine, and they are still devalued, and disrespected, and have a hard time enjoying their bodies, which is such a fundamental part of enjoying life.

I also understand that I am too fat. I am grateful for the stamina and abilities that I have, but I know I am capable of more, and I want that for myself. I want to run and kayak and hang glide and know that I am physically capable of doing anything I need to do.

Reconciling those two things is quite the problem. One thing you may not have noticed though, in the start to that second paragraph, is that I corrected my language. I nearly said I was overweight. I am trying to move away from that. The problem is not really the weight; the problem is the amount of extra fat. If I was a tall female body-builder, my weight might be okay. I am trying to divorce myself from the number.

I want to be healthy, and I believe I can be. There is a whole set of head games in there about attractiveness, and I kind of have to let that one go for now. That's too much of a minefield, but I can focus on health, and health is for now the only valid indicator. Sometimes I have decided to focus on inches instead of pounds, and there are reasons why those might mean more, but those are both banned.I know roughly how much I weigh, and about where my measurements are, because I have checked them both often enough, but I am not checking either again for six weeks, and in those six weeks I am going to focus on taking care of me.

It's so easy to skimp on sleep, and then be too tired to exercise, and compensate for the tiredness with a sugar rush, and I just want off. It's easy to focus on the diabetes, so that's what I'm going to measure. I'll be checking my blood sugar a lot, and adjusting sleep, and water intake, and food intake, and just completely focusing on feeling good.

It feels doable now. I am not in the middle of any big writing projects and it's a slow time at work. The fact that I would totally let those things (and other things) interfere with my physical well-being is a problem, I know. However, I do have that problem, and I know it. I'm choosing an auspicious time to try it out, and I hope to learn good things in the meanwhile that will help me value myself better, and see what follows. I've been in much worse states than this, now I want to try better.

The first test is if I can successfully make it into bed by 10:30 tonight.