Fresh start

NaBloPoMo's theme for April is FRESH. Which is good for April here in the northern hemisphere, where we're all giddy with excitement at ditching our fleece jackets and pulling out the cotton tees again. I'm not putting the fleece in storage quite yet, but soon. Soon.

It's a Monday and the first of the month. I wonder how many people are rebooting their New Year's Resolutions this morning?

As both of you know, my fresh [health-and-fitness] start began not on January 1, but on the day after Christmas. So here we are, the day after Easter, and how am I doing?

Well, I didn't expect another loss after last week's two pounds gone. But I didn't expect to get them back. I've been bouncing around this weight since mid-February. I'm now losing a half-pound a week, and it will be 2015 before I reach my goal. (LoseIt! optimistically predicts January 27, 2014, but that's based on losing a pound a week. WHICH AIN'T HAPPENING!)

I could analyze the numbers and make plans and cry into my coffee, but none of that is going to change the fact that I've worked really, REALLY hard for not much reward. If you base your reward on the scale. Which I do. But I shouldn't. And I know I shouldn't. The reward is healthier! Fitter! Almost wearing jeans again!

I love having all the data at my fingertips. In the past 95 days, I've been over my daily calorie budget for eight of them, and have been at a deficit every damned week. I've worked out way more days than I haven't. The strength-training I added this week should eventually help IF I stay consistent with it. And starting work at the garden center will help, too, as I'll be on my feet instead of on my ass for eight or nine more hours per week.

Let's see, what else.

My pledge to purge my e-mail subscriptions has been very successful. I've lost 50 pounds of junk e-mail and gained an hour a day to play solitaire. Yay, me!

And to wrap up Lent, yesterday my husband and I each filled a trash bag with random stuff we know we can live without. It's a start. A FRESH START. Heh.

Skipping the scale this week

My weekly weigh-in is coming up tomorrow, but I'm not participating. And here's part of the reason why:

• One should not reward oneself with a bowl of ice cream after a five-mile walk.
• One should resist the lure of the 10 for $10 Utz Pretzels display.
• One should not let a pulled bicep keep one from going to the gym for an entire week.

The rest of the reason, of course, is that I'm not going to see the right number, based on what I saw yesterday. When I see the 'wrong' number (it's so hard to convince myself it's just information), I can respond in various ways:

• Buckle down, add activity, eat reasonably.
• Totally cave, what's the use, give up, have some chocolate. And ice cream.
• Starve myself, double the daily diuretic, work out like a maniac.

Let's just say I could have done better.

Today is Monday, and I'm sure both of you know what that means in the dieter's life: Fresh Starts! New Beginnings! Today is the first day of the rest of your life my diet. Er, my do-it-for-life eating plan.

Ya know what? I'll be 61 next month (May 25, don't forget!) and it makes me sad to know I have spent FIFTY YEARS battling my weight. More than six of those years have been on public record here and back at Shrinking Knitter. I've been at a normal weight for about 15 of the last 50 years, but 10 of them were when I was in school and thought I was as fat as a cow, when I really was normal.

My much younger self was so very critical. My much older self is more willing to cut me some slack, based on my spectacular lack of progress despite mostly consistent effort. Especially these last few blogging years, since my effort has been on display, so to speak.

Today I will be good to myself, not with food, but with physical activity (I'm going to the gym and then to work – my work schedule changed; I'm at Groundworks Mondays instead of Sundays now), healthful food in reasonable portions and lots of water. I will take pictures of flowers (that's today's photo-a-day prompt), and I will be surrounded by beautiful sights and sounds all afternoon.

And I will have my once-in-a-while guilty pleasure between gym time and work time.

How do you handle potentially disappointing scale days? Do you face the music or take a mulligan?

Don't let the door hit you in the ass …

So long, 2011, it's been – all in all – a pretty crappy year, one which actually began in September of 2010 when I lost my dad.

You've continued down that path of loss and worry and crisis, 2011, and I'm glad to see you go. I love fresh starts, and flipping the calendar over to a new year is Fresh Start X-treme.

To put this year in perspective, the best thing that happened is my husband's neck tumor was benign. We spent three weeks last spring in malignant limbo, getting things in order, fattening him up for chemo, preparing for the worst, which was what the initial diagnosis indicated we should be doing. One more test showed us – and his incredulous doctor – the precious diagnosis: benign. Snip-snip and the tumor was gone.

Actually the very best thing, as a result of the scare, is that my husband once-and-for-all, a-day-at-a-time, quit smoking. And with all the electronic calendars at my fingertips, I failed to record The Date, but we know it was sometime in March. So, YAY for him! He could've had a baby by now!

In 2011 I lost a close friendship, the ending of which still baffles me. I saved the e-mail exchange upon which it ended and look at it every now and then. The very next week began the trips to doctors and hospitals with my husband, so I didn't have

• much emotional support during that issue or
• much time to worry it.

Also in 2011, my AA sponsor lost her battle with cancer just as her beloved garden began to bloom. And there's been some family drama I can't really write about. And I've gained 13 pounds since last January.  At one point this year I hit my highest weight ever, a very scary number indeed. (I'm back down from it, but just barely.)

Whatever is going on in my life, the underlying theme is always and forever my weight. I have for years been working on it. Many of you have been working on it with me, since the early days of The Shrinking Knitter.

A year ago today my goals were to

• eat from the newly introduced U.S. Food Pyramid
• do a minimum of 60 minutes of intentional activity every day
• strength-train twice a week 
• run a marathon before the end of the year and
• take a picture with my good camera every day.

Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. Well, unless I run a marathon today. Heh.

But notice how I've evolved! I don't set weight-loss goals, I set action goals, goals which will get me where I want to go (which is, of course, weighing less) but that don't set me up for failure by specifying a number or by being too vague.

But I failed anyway.

Therefore, the only way to go is up. RIGHT??? Please tell me I'm right, because if 2012 turns out to be anything like 2011 I'm not sure how I would handle it.

No goals this year. No resolutions. No setting myself up for failure. All I really want to do is to stay motivated to keep on keepin' on, and to dig myself out of this negative, crappy mood. (My husband would be so grateful.)

Today I will take a walk, watch more football, knit more clogs, clean my house, cook a good dinner, shell the dried black-eyed peas I harvested last fall, sit near my lemon tree and breathe the heady fragrance that fills the living room and promises fruit, and a future. And lemonade. Mmmmm, lemonade.

Tomorrow I will make Hoppin' John from those black-eyed peas, and I will knit and take a walk and, as Frasier always said, "Enjoy my day." That's one more thing no one else can do for me.

So, 2011, I for one am not at all sorry to see you go. I will look back on you with relief that you're gone, and I won't miss you at all. See ya. Wouldn't wanna be ya.