I find it interesting how after a few years of throwing caution to the winds, not bothering watching what I ate, worrying about my health or getting any exercise to speak of, I have jumped back on the proverbial band wagon (not the lap band wagon, as I've already mentioned that lap band or gastric bypass surgery was too sci-fi for consideration) after yet another wake-up call from my physician and reasserted learned food and exercise basics that have helped me lose 50 pounds, almost three waist sizes and, with the addition of weight training, have started to improve my skin tone and musculature. But I find it interesting that both circumstances, for worse and now better, have involved putting my brain in a jar.
When I did this after abandoning my last weight loss effort, my old routine involved sleeping in as late as I could in the morning, getting ready for and going to work, then coming home to decide whether to have rice, potatoes or pasta with a whole rotisserie chicken and box of Oreos for dessert. Like the cookies, I was double stuffing myself back then, and when the sugar kicked in it was time to surf the 'Net or lie in bed and watch TV until I fell asleep. I was also waking up every hour or so to urinate because my body was doing its valiant best to eliminate the sugar I was mindlessly pouring into my system, and then I'd glug down more water or soda due to the dehydration I was causing. I wasn't thinking for any length of time about how heavy I was becoming, how tired I felt or what I was doing to my body; that would have required effort. I was hibernating the best way I knew how with an occasional flare of self-awareness.
It required a trip to the doctor's office (which I was avoiding because I wasn't taking care of myself) to make me take my brain out of the saccharine solution it was floating in and put it back in my head to think about what I was doing. I must admit the previous 2 1/2 years of daily walking must have paid off because I managed to only put back 97 of the 173 pounds I'd lost, and the doctor's scale provided some motivation because I thought I weighed 10 pounds more than I actually did. After blood tests I was put back on five different medications, told to monitor my blood sugar daily and lose 10-15 pounds before my next visit in two months. After about four months of following his orders and my own, my blood pressure is great, my blood sugar is just below the range it should be for someone who's had diabetes as long as I have, and my energy level is much higher which, these days, it needs to be.
As you can see from my second blog entry, I am presently on the go every weekday from 7 am to 9 pm from walking to driving to working to driving to walking to working out. There is some variation on the weekends, but I try to start my day with at least a full walk and go to the gym right afterwards, and it's nice to be able to veer from the weekday schedule. Now that I'm eight pounds within reach of my second goal to weigh 320 by Halloween, have been gradually increasing repetitions and weight in my strength training routine, and have been literally going "bargain basement shopping" by taking smaller-sized clothing out of storage I now fit back into and giving my larger clothes to charity so I won't have them to fit back into, I am gradually feeling the need to put my brain back in the jar.
Before you think I'm packing it in (and packing the pounds back on), let me explain. After having used my brain again to reeducate myself on how to lose weight, to read fitness and weight loss books for motivation, to chart my strength training exercises, to remember doctor's visits and when to take my medications and blood sugar readings, I have trained myself to do what I need to do and have done it well. It took quite a bit of thought to figure out how to make all of this happen and to convince myself, and then my body, that I could do it, and now that I have recircuited my brain to know what works best for me, I need to put it back in a jar so my body can continue to do what it needs to without so much continuous input!
I know now to meet my final goal and lose 28 pounds before the end of this year, I need to keep doing what I have been doing which has worked beautifully so far. I also know that once I reach that goal, I will need to use my brain again to figure out how to continue walking, working out and eating properly to a lesser degree than the present pace I've established to maintain what I've accomplished. However, that's all in the future right now, and in order to get to that bright, sparkling achievement in three months' time, I have to get through today first.
Right now, I'm blogging during my half hour for lunch before I go back to balancing the budget for my department for the next four hours. Then, I have about a 40-minute drive home, need to shop for groceries and withdraw my rent to bring to my landlord, feed my cats and eat a little something before I suit up for a half walk at the track and a full upper body circuit at the gym. I'll get home about 9, fire up the VCR to tape a couple of shows while I fix dinner and then finish this blog entry before I climb into bed and go to sleep. It all seems doable when I've written it out on my blog for your (hopeful) reading pleasure, but that's the condensed version. Brought to you by My Brain in a Jar.
Now that I've done everything in the last paragraph and am at home at my computer, what you didn't read before is the fact that I'm not a mathematically inclined person and although I can balance the budget, it is a painstaking process I'm not well-suited for. You didn't read about the stop-and-go traffic I sat in on the way home trying to remain awake, the inane conversation in the bank line at the supermarket, the banter running through my head at the track that I finished walking in the dark, the fatigue that would have set in if I had allowed myself to think about the 18 exercises I performed during my hour-and-a-half circuit at the gym. You're not reading about these things until now because if I don't put my brain in a jar and give too much creedence to all the things I do and deal with on a daily basis (as we all do), I run the risk of becoming overwhelmed.
If I don't take it one walk at a time, one planned meal at a time, one set of exercises at a time; if I don't pace myself and recognize when I need to slow down, take a break, or be careful not to injure myself; if I look in the mirror or step on the scale and don't like what I see there and fail to remind myself this is a process that takes Patience and Fortitude (just like the names of those two majestic stone lions out in front of the New York Public Library) to achieve gradual results; then I stop taking care of myself and all my time, effort and energy goes to waste as they are reversed.
Putting your brain in a jar can be a help or a hindrance. I can put myself into a fugue state where my weight, health and life can spiral out of control by not thinking about them, or I can put myself into a fugue state where I can regain control of my weight, health and life by not overthinking about it. I opt for the latter these days and will keep the jar handy for that purpose.
The Witching Hour approaches and I'm off to bed. Weekly weigh-in is tomorrow: wish me luck. Good night, Woof, Blessed Be, and welcome to October!
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