(Content warning, talking about weight loss and diet.)
A few years ago, I lost…I think it was eighty-eight pounds? I saw Onederland for one brief shining moment. Then everything went kablooey, but anyway.
That took me about a year, and it wasn’t all that hard. I just followed the routine.
Every(ish) Sunday I would prep five breakfasts of overnight oatmeal, and five salads for work lunches. Dinner would be a chicken breast prepared some way, and vegetables. Easy, no thinking, but as variable as I want–you can cook chicken so many ways, and vegetables…yeah.
And I’d generally come in well under on the calorie goal, so if I decided to have that donut someone offered me at work, it didn’t set me back far.
I’d go for walks. I had a gym membership, and I went to the gym!
What’s the point of all this? What the title says. Self-care requires care. It takes time, and it takes energy. Everything went kablooey last time because I suddenly didn’t have the time or the energy to devote to the meal prep and the long walks or even the shopping.
I’ve been trying for years to get my mojo back, but Stuff Kept Happening. And I’ve figured out (I’m a bit slow) that Stuff and brain chemicals had pushed me into an actual real depression.
But finally I got help.
Will it take this time? I don’t know. But I know that I’m trying. I’ve lost a few pounds already. I’ll take it slow, I’ll just keep pegging along, not stressing. Inch by inch, everything’s a cinch. Right?
I’m working to remind myself that the garbage-food I tend to live on when I’m just surviving is Not Good. I don’t like most of the frozen meals. I don’t actually want to eat entire Sweet but Tasteless stuff I pick up on the old bakery items rack by the milk in the back of the grocery store.
What I do love, is the stuff I find at the farmer’s market. Like tzatziki, hummus, and baba ganoush. There’s a lady who makes the best, zomg…I could happily eat any of these straight off the spoon. And I can and will happily dip so many raw veggies in them.
So I got myself up last Sunday, and after a search high and low for my farmer’s market coupons, I went. And bought other good stuff too. Like pea shoot micro-greens, and cauliflower.
Look at that yummy salad. There’s kale in there too, because I actually love kale, a bite or two at a time. (the dressing is Bolthouse Farms Blue Cheese. It’s like $4-5 a bottle, but it’s FIFTY CALORIES and it’s delicious.)
I don’t know if this will work. I think I’ve said over and over that life is a series of falling down and getting back up. Sad but true. I guess.
Would it be better if we could get to perfect and then just had to stay like that? I don’t think so, really. What’s the other saying? If you’re green, you’re growing. If you’re ripe, you’re rotting.
Yeah. Makes sense.
Anyway. Here we go again. Ever onwards, ever (hopefully) upwards.