Last night I took a walk. This is not news. Since the first part of June I have taken many walks, mostly because I did not get my steps where I needed them for the day, so I have been boosting them by taking a walk usually around the neighborhood.
Last night was a bit different. I had arranged to meet a friend and do a little fencing, then when she left the park, I began my laps. As it was not the neighborhood which is easy to keep my mind busy it was a good "clearing my head" kind of walk. From it, came some realizations, and from that the steps forward seemed pretty clear.
The first thing that occurred to me, is that though I weigh something that is considered considerably over my "Ideal" I do not feel super fat and out of shape. Yes it is harder to do some things, but I feel like I do OK overall most of the time. The question then became, if not what I look like now what is my mental Idea of what I weigh. What occurred to me is that it is likely that most people do not have a complete self picture of what they look like to others. Plenty that are very overweight do not always think that they are that bad. Plenty of others who have just a little I would imagine, feel like that 10% fat or something is WAY too much and feel like they are 400 pounds because of it.
So where mentally do I put myself? I weight 322 pounds as of this morning. I know I am over weight. Every time I go to a doctor they tell me. It could have nothing to do with what I am talking to them about, they tell me, believe me I know, this is not some huge revelation. But where do I put myself? Last night, it came very clear. I feel like I am a healthy person most of the time. Ask me to do 100 push ups and it gets a lot different but overall I feel like I am some over but not 150 pounds over. (If you look at BMI my ideal is 170, but at that point I think I would look sickly)
Also to that point was the idea that I know that guy. I know what the Healthy guy would look like or feel like, I know what eating decisions he would make, and how active he would be. The funny thing is that I half expected him to just show up fully formed. One day, eating burgers and fries and drinking a coke for lunch, the next day, this other guy with healthy habits. It was crazy, but somewhere I half expected it to happen. This was dumb, it would not happen, and I think that was almost a security blanket for me. "What? I am not that weight today either? Guess it does not matter what I eat, since it is not happening today."
Then something else occurred to me. I do know this guy. I can feel what it would be like to be him. but nothing is going to magically bridge the gap. It will take time being him before I look like him. It will take work to get there, it is not going to happen over night. If somehow I was 100 pounds less tomorrow. Could I keep it up? Not without the right tools and mindset. This was something I did not have, and something that it would take some doing to get. I heard somewhere once that a huge number of diets fail because even if people reach their goal, they gain it back because they go back to old habits. "I just lost 50 pounds, now I can eat whatever I want." kind of crap.
A huge part of this goes back to something I realized back in June in regards to sword. Not "I can't do it" but "How can I do it?" it gets my mind working. Things are not dismissed, but rather another way is found. That is who that guy is. Not the one who complains without a solution, but one who sees a problem and figures out how to make it work. I know this guy because he is me, his mind is not foreign to mine, his actions are not so far off that I can't see myself doing them. He is walking around in my skin right now with some extra baggage. But we will work that off, all I need to do is to be that guy, be the best I can be right now knowing that tomorrow it may be a bit different but right now he and I are one.
I am not there yet, but I am taking steps. This afternoon I had tuna without mayo or anything else, that is the kind of thing he would do after all, and found that it was not bad, in fact, I liked it. I am not there yet, but "That guy" is me and together we will make it.
