Speaking of It Ashleigh Baker

“Please stop,” he asks.”You know I hate it when you talk like that.”

“Come on,” she says. “It’s getting ridiculous.”

“Get used to it,” a friend tells another. “She talks like this about herself all the time.”

“Do I look fat in this skirt?”

“Back when I was thin…”

“If I was still skinny…”

“Have you seen these thighs?”

“Ugh. I look like a cow.”

I thought talking about it meant I was okay with it.

I didn’t want people to assume I was oblivious to my weight fluctuations.

I thought if I could talk openly, candidly, jokingly, other people would feel they could talk about it too.

They’d know it was all okay.

But it wasn’t okay.

It wasn’t okay with me.

And it certainly wasn’t okay with the people around me.

The truth was they didn’t care whether I was wearing a size four or a size eight or a size twelve. They didn’t notice every two pound gain or loss. They didn’t love me more based on how many days a week I spent at the gym.

But they were sick and tired of hearing me talk about it. The bashing. The joking. The bemoaning.

Those closest to me begged, pleaded, implored.

The rest rolled their eyes, changed the subject and coughed with meaning.

I imagined that talking about my weight issues (or perceived issues) would clear the air in my conversations, and people wouldn’t have to skirt around the issue that was, to me, the loudly sounding elephant among us.

But suddenly, not very long ago, it occurred to me that not once had the recipient of my self-depreciating weight comments been anything other than completely uncomfortable.

I thought the Monster wouldn’t be so big if I could name it.

Though my mind told me the talking–the sad attempts at humor, the self-degrading jesting, bringing it up often–would make me feel better, I broke a bit more every time I spoke of it.

I thought talking about it meant I was okay with it.

The truth couldn’t be more distant.

~~~

One of my most sought-after goals in the Losing It competition is that of changing my thinking.

Last week I bared my soul to you about my struggle with consistently eating for health instead of starving myself into long term metabolic damage. I have to change my thinking and remember that food itself is not the enemy.

The next goal on my totem pole is that of the way I talk, and, at the root of it, the way I think. Constantly berating myself for real or perceived flaws does nothing to reach the end destination. Instead, it draws attention to the very thing I’m trying to convince everyone isn’t a big deal.

Pointless.

~~~

The Week 1 report:

Food: I ate three meals a day, every single day. That is huge. I even ate some snacks. We’ve been able to find a few resources for good, whole food here in our new town, which has been wonderful–I’ll be talking more about that in future Losing It posts.

I also ate Chinese (total weakness of mine) and ice cream on a date night. But I’m totally forgiving myself for that, being it was our last real date of that sort before the deployment.

Water: It is so hard for me to remember to drink water. I didn’t drink enough, by any stretch of the imagination. I’m going to aim to finish two of my big water bottles every day, because I can actually feel the dehydration.

Exercise: I have a new exercise program I’m planning to use in place of the gym since I don’t have the same options available any longer in our new tiny mountain town. I planned to start it this week, but didn’t ever get enough boxes and floor space cleared out of our new house to actually do so. Instead, we went snowshoeing, walking, sledding and skiing.

I definitely burned a calorie or a trillion and after the skiing yesterday (WITH the boys!) I can hardly walk. Just sayin.

Losing It: As of this morning, I’ve lost two pounds this week. That’s right on track.

Losing It (but not our sanity) is a 10 week weight loss competition hosted by Mary at Giving Up On Perfect, along with Jessie at Vanderbilt Wife and me. If you’d like to join in the fun–and the loss!–go to Giving Up On Perfect and link up to your own post about the challenge. If you link up six of the ten weeks and are the contestant with the highest weight percentage lost, you will win a gift card to Dick’s Sporting Good, a pedometer provided by Weight Watchers, and a six month subscription to The 6 o’Clock Scramble, a healthful menu planning service.