Taking Ownership

There’s just something about starting with an empty shopping cart that’s ripe with potential. Will I fill it with processed foods, crackers, chips, soda and junk? Or will I fill it with fresh fruits and veggies and whole grains? I feel so successful when, while checking out, I can look in my cart and see so many healthy foods with lots of colors. I think a sign of a successful shopping trip is when you get home, put everything away, and still think…I have NOTHING to eat! What I mean by that is you have nothing already prepared…nothing easy. You have a lot of food, but it all needs to be made. Part of me hates that I have nothing already prepared, but I know in the long run, it’s the right thing.

I think so much of weight loss comes down to laziness. I know…how dare I say that. I know as “large people” the L word is so taboo. There’s a stigma against fat people saying that we’re lazy and that’s why we’re fat. So many people fight back with their list of to-do’s, what job they have, how many kids they have etc. Food is a good way to gage where we hold our priorities in life. Are we so tired that McDonalds is the go to choice? I know we can’t always make a home cooked meal, but can we do it 4 days a week? Probably, if we really wanted to. Or if we can’t make it ourselves, can we at least buy something healthy? I think we tend to put everything before exercise and healthy eating. Lately I’ve had so little tolerance for people who are just giving up. I’m talking about people who complain and complain about their life, their spouse, their weight, their health, their schedule, their job and yet are just too lazy or afraid to do anything about it. Complaining is just easier that action in the short term.

All of this is not to say at ALL that I’m perfect at this, far from it. Far far from it. But I just really have come to a point in my life, probably like you have too if you’re a weight loss blogger, where the status quo is no longer working and I’m done pretending that it is. This realization doesn’t demand 100% all the time, but what it does require is that you look honestly at your life and own it. If you don’t want to work out, fine, but don’t pretend it’s because you just had a long day. We all have long days. We all are tired at 4:45 in the morning. If you want to make it a Manwich night, by all means do so, but understand what you’re putting in your body and take ownership of it.

For years I was in denial about me being lactose intolerant. People would say, sounds like a lactose issue and I’d be all, no, me? No way. I clung to the term “irritable bowel” because for some twisted reason it gave me license to sort of stay miserable but keep the power to change it out of my hands. There’s no known cause of IBS, it can strike at any time and there is no cure. I took that to mean…it’s not this fried chicken sandwich with cheese on it, it’s my IBS! It’s not ME, it’s SOMETHING OUTSIDE OF ME!

Once I actually took all cheese and milk out of my diet I actually started to feel better. I no longer fear having the EP’s (Emergency Poo’s) and the V3’s (Violent 3’s). Basically, I don’t live in fear of shitting my pants anymore and let me tell you, that’s a fear that will send anyone into the flop sweat at the first twinge of the stomach rumbles. No bueno.

It’s like this…I love me some restaurant nachos and I love pizza, who doesn’t? But those things are like death for me so I don’t eat them. Or if I have pizza I literally scrape all the cheese off which is not fun, so I rarely eat it. Point is, I know if I do X, I’ll get Y. So why the disconnect with other areas of our lives? Are we so afraid to link lifestyle and food choices with obesity that we simply refuse to believe that it’s anything WE’RE doing, and automatically place blame on something else?

It’s not this burger, it’s the bun
It’s not this milkshake, it’s my IBS
It’s not my unwillingness to make time to workout, it’s my busy schedule.
It’s not this monte cristo, it’s my genetics.

Does this make you absolutely mad? I know I can’t be alone, right?

Have the burger, milkshake, monte cristo and don’t workout, but stop pretending that you have no control over your life. You do! We all do!

And I’m spent.