This exchange happened today in my classroom:
Student: Why are you so awesome?
Me: See my to-do list on the wall over there? (pointing to the whiteboard by my desk) What does the last thing on it say?
Student: Be awesome.
Me: It’s on my to-do list every day: be awesome. I don’t know any other way to be. That’s why.
*class resumes*
And it’s true: I don’t know any other way to be. I don’t wake up in the mornings and say to myself I am just going to half-ass this day. There is something deep inside me that won’t let such a thing happen and be okay with it. I’m simply not wired for anything less than awesome. That might sound super egotistical, but it is what it is. This is how I have been my entire life.
This is problematic.
It is problematic in that if I fall short of my own expectations, then I am very, very hard on myself. I tell myself that even my best efforts are not good enough. I beat myself up mentally, and push, push, push myself even harder than before. This too, is problematic.
As many of you know, weight loss (no matter how one chooses to pursue it) is fraught with victories and losses, both large and small. I’ve written about both equally here and I’m sure there will be many, many more as I work my way toward my goal weight. I am trying so hard to be successful at this latest weight loss venture because I know all too well what it is like to fail at it. It sucks. Hard.
And perhaps that is why I am so determined to make this work. I have tried and failed at this so many times that this time, goddammit, I will not accept failure. I refuse to accept anything less than awesome, and I refuse to fail this time.
This mentality is okay for the weight loss phase of this journey, but what happens when I get to maintenance? Maintenance is something that looms in the far, far distance and I will admit it is something I am terrified of because it is something I have never done before–maintained a large weight loss for a long period of time. The planner in me thinks about this sometimes–more lately as I creep closer and closer to my surgeon’s goal. But I don’t think about it too often since it is so far away.
I have to learn to tell the planner to think about the now because that’s where I live. I’m not living in the future, and the now is where I exist. I can’t keep thinking so far ahead that I forget to think about today. This is hard sometimes.
I’ll have to ruminate on this stuff some more…there is far more here to uncover that I haven’t even begun to dig up.
And now, food. It was a good protein day–89 grams.
Today’s food choices, from upper right: scrambled egg with cheese and Owens turkey sausage links; almond butter and saltine crackers; Tillamook cheese snack; honey garlic marinated flank steak with green beans and tomatoes; Meyer lemon dressing marinated turkey tenderloin and Trader Joe’s mashed potatoes (not shown); multivitamin and calcium supplements x2. Not shown: sliced turkey breast.
La Guerra de La Gorda 