Business As Usual

I’m feeling a little uninspiring as late on the whole dieting and exercising thing. It’s not that I’m not doing well with it all, but I feel a little dull and boring. I am just ticking along the same way I have for the past 18 months or so, doing my exercise and eating my small lap band meals with the occasional splurge.

It seems like everyone I know and love in blog land and in real life* are all filled with the spirit of the New Year Resolution and are seriously kicking arse. Everywhere I look people are training for half-marathons, eliminating carbs and counting points-- and having pretty spectacular results too I might add. Sometimes it makes me feel unsure about myself and what I am doing and I wonder if I should be doing more?

I have tried almost every diet and training plan that is on the market and I have found that they don’t work for me. Or is it that I don’t work them? I am not good at following rules or plans because I am pig-headed and I don’t like being told what to do. As soon as it is suggested to me to do something, I want to do the opposite. I need to know that something is completely my choice before I’ll do it. Similarly, if something is restricted, then it's all I want. If I tell myself that I'm not going to eat ice cream for a week, well within 24 hours I'll be on the couch with a tub of ice cream feeling like a failure.

Case in point: I had been hating on my gym membership for the past month and AJ was sick of hearing about it. One afternoon he told me that he called the gym and cancelled my membership seeing as I didn’t want to go back. I stood dumbfounded for a second and was furious at him for doing that without consulting me. Then a minute later I realised he was making it up and I promptly went upstairs put my gym clothes on and went to the gym for the first time in a month. His response: ‘I knew that would work’.

I don’t believe there is a right or wrong way to lose weight. I don’t think that you must join a gym or drink 8 glasses of water a day or count calories or eat breakfast or eliminate diet soft drinks to lose weight. I am a firm believer in finding what works for you and sticking to it. In my opinion, it is consistency that brings long term success. So if having a lap band or doing Atkins or eating only snickers bars works with your lifestyle and it is an approach you can happily maintain for the rest of your life, then I seriously applaud you for finding what works for you.

I can’t lie and pretend I don’t get frustrated by the scales (B can testify to that!) or wish that cute dress would fit me right now, but for the most part I am happy going along as I am. I still have times of doubt, but I know that the way I am living now will get me to my goal weight eventually and is a lifestyle I can maintain. Now, if only the snickers diet would work for me…

*I hate that term; it seems to denote that internet friends/life is not real…