Guilt over a goal achieved

And embarrassment that I let the wellness industry get so far inside my head!

I haven’t been tracking everything every day, because two months of diligence in that department is enough to build the habits I need to maintain. Number one being take your vitamins every day! And meat every day to help build my iron stores. Makes such a huge difference to be properly nourished. I find it makes me more likely to eat less because my body isn’t aching to be nourished. For example, yesterday I made two nikumaki for a portable dinner between running errands and volunteering, but I was sufficiently suffonsified after one.

Nikumaki: meat-wrapped onigiri

Anyway, I’ve been continuing my morning situps, tap dance, riding my bicycle as much as possible, and getting outside for at least a walk around the block every day. And it’s working! I'm down a pound today, just one pound away from my goal weight. More importantly, I could tell before I weighed myself, because the difference, though small, is obvious. So I was excited to weigh myself, and giddy at the number, and then had a reflexive “don't feel happy about weight loss” admonition creep into my brain.

Why does this stuff have to be so fraught? I mean I know why; centuries of everyone feeling free to critique women’s bodies for being the wrong shape, and decades of backlash against that.

Anyway the other thing I’ve been working on lately—at the behest of my therapist—is rewarding myself. Recognizing when I’ve done something difficult, acknowledging that effort, and rewarding myself for doing the work. And it’s hard! My last blog post was all about that. 

But this morning, in addition to my usual therapy homework, I had an additional task that I’ve been avoiding, and I got it started. Extra difficult, so I extra earned my reward. Plus achieving another step towards my weight goal.

So I’m typing this really to remind myself—I have achieved something, and I do deserve a reward.

Pain au chocolat and Mexican drinking chocolate