To be clear, I learned some important new things in late 2012, but was too preoccupied eating everything that wasn't nailed down over Christmas, then coming down with the flu, then watching approximately 18 hours of the Shawshank Redemption since it was playing on multiple TV channels over several days, then spilling ginger ale on my goddamned iPhone in a fever induced flail, which I don't recommend ever doing, then missing New Year's Eve because I was still embedded in my couch, clutching a bucket, and watching the last half of the Shawshank Redemption. Again.
In short, I was busy. Due to my catching the flu, a few things I learned late in 2012 have only been fully considered in 2013, now that I'm no longer sprawled on death's doormat.
So in no particular order...
Bitches be crazy.
Starting with my Naturopath, who I just fired. From September to December, I paid her office a considerable amount of money. I desperately need and want to lose weight, and she was adamant she could help me.
She placed me on a very strict dietary program, which she swore was tailored for my needs, and a virtual silver bullet for weight loss in the "metabolically resistant."
The diet proved to be a bullet alright, only not for weight loss. At an excessively curvaceous 5'11 tall, I was getting by on 300-400 calories a day - only by December I had stopped getting by at all.
I'd feel dizzy and sick at the gym, and instead of steadily increasing weights and repetitions, my stupidly hot personal trainer recorded several days where I actually regressed.
Going to the gym began to feel like punishment for the teaspoon of peanut butter I'd been unable to stop myself from guiltily shoving into my mouth the night before, instead of an activity I once enjoyed. My mood was tanking. I'd feel sick instead of hungry all the time, and sicker still when I wolfed down whatever half-servings I was permitted.
When I complained that the inflexibility of the program didn't seem sustainable, or that I missed having a social life, or that I could no longer afford the "medical food" prescribed as an integral part of the weight loss program and conveniently available for purchase at her office, she would call into question my commitment to my health. If I wasn't ready or willing to make the sacrifices, then I wasn't ready to lose the weight.
However, she realized a little compromise might have to be made, especially ahead of the holiday season. The program was perfectly sustainable, and I could even have dessert if I wanted to on occasion.
For example, if I wanted to have half of a nanaimo bar, all I'd have to do is spend an hour at the gym working it off the next day, and there would be no issue.
If that wasn't enough sweets for me, I could even indulge in some chocolate! She suggested a brand of organic dark chocolate, made locally on one of the gulf islands. Each small bar is six squares, and once a week, I could treat myself and have two squares of chocolate.
One half of a nanaimo bar. A whole two squares of chocolate. Once a week.
This is when I realized - bitch is crazy.
Fat shame me, starve me, make me measure my lettuce and expect me to work out every day on less caloric energy than stored in a single Tic-Tac, and as long as I have hope that I will fit into smaller pants before I hit menopause, I will keep going.
Mess with everything I hold sacred about dessert however, and I will strike you down.
When is half a nanaimo bar ever classified as a full dessert?? If the size of the dessert in question measures smaller than the average amount of delicious goodness I might accidentally drop down my cleavage while eating a normal serving - it's not dessert.
Also, I don't care how organic, expensive, or dark and rich two squares of chocolate might be. I don't care that the chocolate was made on a gulf island, likely chanted over by hippies and stirred with a unicorn horn given how pricey this particular brand is to buy - two squares a week is less than the amount of chocolate I might accidentally absorb through my skin while walking by a Purdy's on a hot summer day.
So in other words, fuck you Naturopath.
I stopped the diet, and started eating like a normal person again through Christmas. As of last week, I've cut down my sugar and carbs, and we'll see what happens when I weigh myself next. I may weep, or I may be pleasantly surprised - but at least I'm no longer sick and dizzy.
I'm averaging triple the daily calories I was eating in the months before Christmas, and in the last week alone, my stupidly hot personal trainer has seen enough improvement in my strength and balance that he's revamping my whole program.
(He's really pumped, because apparently we now get to do "a lot more fun things!" Somehow, I sense the fun things he's picturing us doing together are likely drastically different than the fun things I'm always picturing us doing together, but he's sweet nonetheless for being so excited at my sudden and drastic progress.)
Starving myself cut down my strength, but it did very little to cut back my weight. In nearly four months on the program, I lost only nine pounds. Near the end, my weight had actually started to creep back up.
Despite sticking obsessively to the plan, I started gaining a half to a full pound a week - results the Naturopath attributed to the extra teaspoon or two of peanut butter I admitted to eating a week, just to stop my hands from shaking.
I'm not giving up my efforts to be healthier, and I'm not crazy for trying. I was crazy however, for thinking I could do it without food. And if anybody would like to split a dessert some time - get your own, or I will stab your goddamned hand with a fork.
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