I had a good friend of mine once tell me, “Don’t take this the wrong way (which I rarely do unless it’s a comment from my mom), but you eat a lot of salad. I mean A LOT and all kinds of vegetables so it just seems, and don’t take this the wrong way (this moment, by the way, is the exact start of when ANYONE begins to take things the wrong way #screwdisclaimers), but it just seems like you’d be … smaller.”
I realize that this might catch some people off guard, but it didn’t trip me up. The fact of the matter is that I do eat a lot of vegetables, there are probably only two veggies that I won’t eat at all (peas and squash). I also eat a good deal of protein with any of my meals (meat and cheese baby!). All of these points add up to a person who has a decent diet (one that could obviously be better depending on the kinds of meat, what’s on the salad, and how big the portions are) which could lead one to the assumption that I’d be smaller. HOWEVER, the fact that I am not smaller is due, in large part to one glaring obstacle … I hardly exercise at all. Now this “exercise” thing has a few different capacities:
Level 3: I don’t official exercise, but I get active a few times a week (ride a bike, walk a dog, etc.)
Level 2: I don’t officially exercise, but I do have to walk up some stairs to my apartment and to my boss’s office
Level 1: I don’t exercise in any capacity, except to walk to the refridgerator and the bathroom
I am a full fledged member of Level 2. I teach at a college campus and I almost always park off campus which means that I walk all over campus from room to room, to the library, to the administration building and so on and so forth. When I go out on the weekends I do a bit of walking around town getting lunch or going over to a friends house. I also love dancing. I USED to walk my dog before it got dank, dark, and foggy outside by 5pm. So I don’t think I’m a total lost cause, but considering how I try to think about my food a good, or rather REGULAR exercise regimine could only do good. So this is Day One. I’m working out on some Women’s Health tone-up plan.
This IS NOT a diet blog (#justanotherthingwrongwiththeworld) I just thought my one month attempt to be ANY better looking in a New Year’s Eve dress was indicative of a general frustration I have with myself and my life. I’m a fickle, short term, lazy person (for a start). I’m also pretty funny and nice and I try to be giving. I’m pretty easy on the eyes (teaser alert: prelude to my narcissistic personality post) and I’m low maintenance and easy to be around. So this isn’t the fat girl pitty party (although if you gotta have one I totally promote that), and you better believe that I am 100% confident that there are A LOT of people in the world just like me. I can get motivated to do things in the short term, but inevitably I get bored and don’t want to deny myself ANY kind of play time. Thus, things eventually shift off the tracks, the train cars start tipping and before I know it I’m looking at a full on, bring-out-the-meat-wagon-because-there-are-no-survivors flaming, shit storm of a wreck … or at least it feels that way.
People dole out life lessons and epiphanies all the time, I do too. BE PATIENT, TAKE TIME TO SMELL THE ROSES, PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD, THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORM, EDUCATION IS PARAMOUNT, BE YOURSELF and all the other hubbub BS. And the idea is that these are all helpful little coping tools to put in your toolbox so you can use them when your internal firemen can’t put out a flaming train wreck anxiety attack, but it doesn’t seem to matter how many tools or firemen you have. As my family likes to put it SHIT HAPPENS and you can’t control it or be prepared enough. But when I decide to stop trying to be so prepared it doesn’t go over very well either. When I don’t save for a rainy day my car breaks down, but I can generally count on someone to bail me out for the month until my next paycheck or I can take the bus for a couple weeks if need be. However, when I DO save for a rainy day, my car breaks down, my laptop gets stolen, the dog drinks something that makes his stomach hemorage, and someone calls me with a defaulted account I forgot about and need to pay “before further action is taken”. I’m starting to really hate that guy Murphy (#whosaysshitlikethat).
I mean basically the “American Dream” is saving for a rainy day: you invest in someone and get married so you’re not ALONE and you’ve got someone to go to all your stupid events with, you invest in kids to carry on your crappy name and/or change the world, you invest in a house to raise the family in and make warm memories and use as equity to help pay for shit … the American Dream is basically ONE BIG INVESTMENT and you know the only problem with investments? SHIT DOES AND CONTINUES TO HAPPEN. Your spouse divorces you (apparently it’s catching on), your kids are too damn expensive and aren’t getting the best public school education (thanks to the same folks who are probably cutting the hours at whatever job you have), and that house you tossed thousands of dollars into is now empty and costly. This, of course, is just one example.
My point is that people try to give you all these tools, but the problems and issues you have to deal with individually and as a member of society keep changing ALL THE TIME. So the tools don’t work right or, at their worst, they work against you, hence: drug abuse, alcoholism, promiscuity, compulsive shopping/hoarding and any other host of issues.
My basic plan has been to just follow all of the advice I’ve ever been given as a sort of try-anything-once-fail-safe deal. And I do this until I don’t want to anymore. The biggest problem I have is that I generally don’t want to follow advice period or, in about a week or two after I start following it, I can’t get over the feeling that the advice is full of shit and so is the person who probably gave it to me. This, of course, is not always the case, but I don’t like sharing my headspace with a bunch of other know-it-all voices. MY voice in my head is plenty to deal with.
So with everything seeming so chaotic and random and relentless … WHAT THE FUCK GIVES, but probably more important WHO THE FUCK CARES? I am battling through constant frustration and impending (if not already, silently, here) apathy. I want to do SOMETHING that moves me, but have no idea why anything really matters in the long term. Thus, I just keep trying things and doing stuff (ambiguous pronouns intended). I figure I might only move “forward” in slight increments and I might only “progress” 10% of the time, but the least I can do is NOT go backwards or sit in the same hole forever (more on those later!).
This is officially the first day that I’ve tried the Women’s Health deal. My first training day didn’t totally kick my ass, but there were some exercises that got me on my third set and my legs feel like jello. I’m supposed to eat before and after working out so I had a protein bar before and now, go figure … I’m having salad. Here’s to day one, my sore legs, my salad and the chaos that’s waiting outside my door, every damn day, to throw shit in my face. ###
YOUR TURN:
What’s the best/worst life advice you’ve been given and did it help or hinder?
Building To Oblivion 
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