The Power of Resistance

I saw something highly disturbing (and also elating) today.

I saw pictures of myself from several months to a year ago. And let me tell you, they were not pretty. Really.

Despite my frustration with how slowly the whole weight-loss thing is going, I can't deny that I've come a long, long way in 6 months. Actually, looking at myself in the mirror after looking at my past self (via the amazing invention of pixels, not time-travel, sillies), I couldn't help but wonder where on earth all that...all that Me has gone. For it hath. Several poundages of it.

Frankly, I feel amazed that the little things I do every day (i.e. the resisting of delicious-looking English goodies, donuts, cookies, chocolate cake, White Bread, not to mention the three to five days a week I manage to get roughly an hour of exercising) have made a great deal of what made up my body disappear.

I mean, it is gone. (Well, not all of it, of course. I'm still not halfway to my goal (I had a LOT to lose) but I hope to reach the halfway point this Monday.)

Anyway--my point is ('Is there ever a point in my meanderings,' she thought desparingly to herself) how really powerful resistance is.

Yes, the exercise has been important. It's half of the equation, or so I believe. (You nutritional scientists out there would be able to give me a better idea of the actual ratio.) But I believe that a huge amount of the weight I've lost is due simply to the consistent resistance of foods I knew would make me want to eat more (sweet stuff, mainly) and by so doing either stall or reverse this weight loss.

So I just haven't eaten anything like that. Since late last year (October, I think). I mean, nothing. I haven't cheated on this diet except for one day a few weeks after I started where...well, the situation would have been difficult if I hadn't participated in eating the foods prepared for me.

People around me (particularly at work) keep saying to me that they're stunned at my self-control. Truth be told, I'm actually stunned myself. I didn't think I had it in me, which brings me to my real honest-to-goodness point:

We're all capable of doing things like this. Those same co-workers who express amazement at my food-resisiting ability say that they're just not capable of doing the same. But they are!

Previous to my experience these past 6 months, I thought that I would never be able to handle something like this for this long. Heck, the exercise part again was nigh-to-impossible, as I have a serious love affair going on with my bed and I am loathe to leave it. Ever.

But, I give up both sweet foods & my precious, precious sleeps. Why? Because this goal of getting down to a normal weight is something I've made more important than either of those things I genuinely loved.

It actually makes me wonder what else I'd be capable of doing (really, what anybody would be capable of doing) if I were more willing to just say to myself, "Self, I am doing this and there just simply is no way that I am not doing it. Not doing it is just not an option."

I've discovered I'm capable of getting halfway to a normal BMI in 6 months. I'm also capable of making the seemingly impossible (for me) leap to applying for grad school. I've also learned I'm capable of being pretty good at name indexing. And heck, even if I never finished that darn novel, at least I wrote 50,000+ words of it. Even if it was no good. I still did it.

Now, if I can just overcome the whole pride thing, I think I'll be sitting pretty. Er. But not prettier than anybody else. Really.