Tag: fat

A kick

Perhaps the fear was the kick I have been both wanting and needing. I have been busy and tired and not sleeping well and needing to do loads of work (though not necessarily being productive during the school day, anyway). I have not been exercising almost at all. Perhaps it has been once or twice a week for the past month. Three times one week, and only one or two since then. None last week at all. So, here I am, experiencing a terribly stressful level of fat on my body. It’s one thing not to exercise and to eat well. But not to exercise and then to continue eating the same easy way… bad recipe, as I have now proven.

Anyway, so here I am. And I exercised today, especially doing the interval cardio section that I really haven’t felt like doing lately. It was a good feeling afterward.

And I still feel and see the fat on me, so, hopefully, it will encourage me to keep going with the exercise. I was for so long at a point of not being as fit as I wanted but not being able to see excess fat… it led me to doing less and less, because it was neither inspiring/encouraging nor terrifying. Now, the scales have tipped, at last, and I am terrified. Though it inevitably will improve, until it is at the original ideal fitness I have for myself, the scale somehow always stays tipped to the negative.

Thus, to work!

Thank you, God, for this clarity and this opportunity. Help me to heal, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Fat and fears

In a matter of two and a half weeks, I suddenly have fat hanging on my belly… I can grab it and everything…

And it is utterly crushing…

God, help me to release this fat, to exercise appropriately and effectively, and to eat safely, now especially, and always, too, please. Please. Please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Quick Karma

Firstly, yes, I am still sick. Improved further, but still breaking into uncontrollable fits of coughing here and there, making my throat sore sheetlet from the intense coughing. My abdominals are less sore, which is a clear improvement. And my throat doesn’t have the burn to it anymore. Also, there seems to be less coming out of my nose as a whole from either direction, which is good. I also can kind of talk again. Though, the taking aggravates the coughing, so it is only so helpful… 😛

Now, down to business: quick karma., as I called it.

So, my man is juicing. Why? He’s struggling with learning portion control and containing himself in general when tasty food is around. He’s doing a fitness challenge right now, and wanted to do six days total (with two rest days in the middle) of having only these set juices as his ‘food’ for the day, as they help ‘cut’, as the guys all call it. Juice cleanses and juicing in general are by nature very low in calories, making them one of many ways people choose to help cut down their fat levels, especially after bulking up.

Well, that’s what my man is doing right now: cutting, in the form of juicing.

However, he keeps eating little bits of valentine’s candy here and there. :/ And then, here’s the kicker. I heard him say earlier how he wanted pizza. Clearly, he saw the leftover pieces from our Valentine’s Day meal together – yes, we had agreed ahead of time that we wanted our meal together to be Costco pizza, because it’s amazing and because a slice is almost like a heart shape – sitting in the fridge. However, he doesn’t seem to act on the desire, and so I say nothing about it, so as not to make it harder on him by talking about food. (He really struggles mentally on these cleanses, in ways I’ve never understood.)

Hours later, he finally rushes out the door to go to the gym for his nightly workout session. It takes him multiple trips back and forth to the car, but he finally sets out, and I start to get ready for bed.

I notice that I’m feeling a little low on something in my own diet, and so go to the fridge to see what can help remedy my situation. The berries I bought will do just the trick, I think. As I pull out the box of blackberries, I end up glancing down at the pizza slices on the edge of the bottom shelf.

But something is wrong… There is too much space. How can this be??

I take a closer look at the pizzas. I know in a moment what is odd about them. They aren’t odd… they’re even… they’re only two.

P——!

I send him a message. I state his name first. Then send another message. “I’ll let you guess what I’m about to ask you…”

He quickly replied with a clever, “Stop.
“🔨🕰️”.

I reply, “Collaborate and LISTEN
“Last chance to guess
“Let’s collaborate on ideas of what this problem might be haha”.

We’re idiots, I know.

He responds, “Yes I left some lights in
“On*”.

“Not a problem, love”

And then I add, “What I’m wondering, is how, when I wrapped and placed three pieces of pizza in the fridge yesterday, there are, somehow, only two in there now… how could that be, when I didn’t eat any pizza today, and you’re on a juice cleanse?”

He immediately responds, “Lolololol”.

A moment later, he adds, “I knew I forgot something… look near our pantry”.

Sure enough, sitting atop the aluminum foil box and zipper baggies is a massive slice of Costco pizza, still wrapped up in foil and cool from the fridge. It hadn’t been there long.

After I discover the pizza slice, he adds, “Dang
“And I still didn’t get to eat it”.

Durn straight he doesn’t get to eat it. In case anyone forgot here, HE’S ON A JUICE CLEANSE(!!!!)! What’s he doing here, trying to cut with a juice cleanse, and then eating a massive slice of calorie-rich pizza??? No wonder he has trouble with self-control under normal circumstances… Ugh! This man… boy, do I love him, but, sometimes, I just can’t see where he’s coming from on things. 😛

And talk about instant karma… he sneaks a slice of pizza, but ends up forgetting it at home. What’s more, if I hadn’t mentioned anything about it, the dog likely would’ve found the slice before I did. Then it would’ve been long gone and made a mess on the carpet in the dining room (where the dog, no doubt, would have eaten the pizza). So, his getting caught actually made the situation better for all. Because the dog doesn’t need that much pizza either – she’d hurl in the middle of the night. Yet another mess he’d have to clean up…

Anyway, with that, I’m going to sleep: I probably rambled telling that all, but that’s where I am in my need for sleep. I wish you a lovely night and day. May God bless you all. Amen.

P.S. Please, God, heal me. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Wait, weight

Two things here. Firstly, language, and secondly, looks.

Language: I find it important to be conscious of what language we use around everything in life. This includes body weight and fitness. So, I do not like to use the term ‘to lose weight’ or any form of it. Why? Because, like they say with hypnosis and all other subconscious-connected things, if we “lose something,” our brains will aim to “get it back.” So, if we say that we’ve lost weight, our brains subconsciously can be always on the lookout to find that lost weight. It may sound utterly ridiculous, but the ways in which our words can impact our thinking, our habits, and our lives is quite profound.

So, I say things like, “released,” “went down in,” “got rid of,” etc. weight or fat, or I just say that one “weighs less,” instead did that someone “lost weight.”

Now, that being said, I move to the second item on the agenda.

Looks: Have you ever seen or known someone who actually looks like he or she lost weight? Like it is actually missing from their bodies, and they look, somehow, incomplete without it? Like they need to fill out, and presently look shrunken and somewhat collapsed and odd in their own skin? Some people seem like they are actually made to be a bit thicker, tougher, more solid, and so they look odd – like they’re missing something – once they have lost their weight…, because it seems it really was lost somewhere and ought to be found.

Post-a-day 2022

Body power

At the gym today, someone asked me what I had noticed as the biggest difference from having been at the gym for so long. I immediately thought of my muscles, the obvious strength in my shoulders and arms – a strength I love to see whenever I pass a mirror -, my near constant touching of my own muscles, the shape alteration of my hips and waist and thighs, the lines (as we call it) on my leg muscles… but those all seem like small things to me, and none stands out as significantly more prominent in my mind than the rest. Perhaps it is my energy levels or my endurance capabilities. Or perhaps it is how I no longer just feel comfortable in my own skin, but I feel capable in it…, ready to take on anything, bidden or not…

I really wasn’t sure, and I thought on it for quite a while this afternoon and evening. However, when I was preparing to take a shower, I went to take a look at my body. Naked and tired from having been worked hard this afternoon at the gym – I felt like fighting someone, so I went to the gym, even though I had planned to go tomorrow instead of today – it stood its ground nonetheless. What stood before me looked nothing like a tired body. Truly, what came to mind when I saw it was simply the word, “woman”. It was woman as she was designed to be. It was the young hunter-gatherer of a clan from so many years and generations ago, when we first became the ingenious homo sapien sapien. It was Ayla from The Earth’s Children book series.

And I realized that that was the greatest difference I had noticed in myself since joining the gym. When I see my naked body now, I do not frown at the shape, nor find sorrow in the excess fat areas. I see simply woman, and I am both grateful and proud to be the host of that woman. I have worked long and hard, and I shall continue to do so, because it feels not just good but right to be this woman. This is part of who I’m meant and made to be. And I am grateful.

Post-a-day 2021

Yess!

I have made it back to an approximate 20% body fat measurement. That is a huge celebration of satisfaction for me. I have been without a gym, essentially, for half a year now. Going from an average of four or five days a week of intense workouts and weight training at the gym to home workouts with almost no weights, and then to no gym to give workouts and support at all has been a lot this year for me. I definitely did not maintain my same fitness level from before the changes, and I had still been in a sort of recovery period from the adventures of traveling in culture and foods and not-much-exercise in Japan and The Philippines. So, I wasn’t even in my best condition when everything started closing. I was probably around 18% or 19% body fat then.

I have always struggled with doing things on my own – thus the gym membership, and the workout buddy who signed up with me, at my behest. So, the workout situation has been nowhere near where I have wanted it to be in the past six months, during which time I have had to manage it all on my own, alone. I have been slowly working toward following the diet I truly want to follow and being as active and as fit as I truly want to be. Part of those have been working toward being autonomous in, well, all of them. Interesting how I hadn’t quite ever put words and solid thoughts to that idea until just now, but those words ring as true. So, I have been focusing on a very slow process of adjusting my daily life to be closer and closer to that life I want to be leading. I have no one other than myself for leaning, so balance and thought and true consideration and evaluation are all key in this.

I had worked my way down to an approximate 16% body fat, back a year ago in October/November. Keep in mind that, though this is a rather low number for the average woman, for my body’s makeup, it is actually still an entirely safe and healthy percentage. Much lower would be unnecessary, though. However, even at that 16% body fat, I still had areas of gathered fat on which I was working to release, mostly in my hips and legs. Also, to get myself even to that point was a very, very intense yet extremely gratifying journey, for which I am entirely grateful. I had never really believed that I could be at that level of fitness in my life, and definitely not at this age. Now that I have been there, I have experienced the real ness of such a possibility for me. And I want to have myself back in that space and living. However, this time will be through the breakthrough of autonomy for my own exercise and fitness. That way, I am ready and able to maintain it going forward, no matter if a gym closes or I move houses or towns or countries – I can always be at the level of fitness that I and my body want me to be, such that I can best serve the world while I am in it in this body and life.

Post-a-day 2020

Fitness vs Fatness

Am I at the focus, or is something else the A-liner? Fitness or Fatness? Lately, I have not been at the center – my health and well-being, this body that carries my soul, my spirit, in this lifetime. Lately, my tongue’s and memory’s desires have been the center of my food. It is no wonder I have had much more fatness than fitness in my life lately.

I have been wanting it more and more, but have yet to turn the tides fully over the past several months… I wonder what has been missing for me to do that… is it a question of self-worth in the midst of having to create self-motivation to create the time and the energy and effort for fitness all on my own? I think I have always reached out somehow when I have gotten to a point in fitness/fatness at which I do not want to be any longer. But turning to the groups is not exactly an option right now where I live, and also how I live (aka I can’t afford to spend the money on the one place where I could do the group fitness right now). But I also do not genuinely want to reach out this time. I want to resolve whatever this has been within me that I continue to have stop me from fitting myself (as I like to say in my head… or, also, fitnessing myself). And so, I will not join that gym. Right now, I’m a bit too tired to function effectively enough to work through all of this, but I intend to continue this conversation with myself tomorrow, and to search for and find those uncomfortable parts that I have allowed to run me for these past several years.

At that, goodnight! 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Bellyache

Well, today was it. Or so my internal goals say, anyway. I am done eating gluten for now. I feel terrible every time I have it, especially when combined with the other stuff I would prefer not eating. I had already intended today to be the last day of it – you see, my weekly source of free food has finished, at last, and that food was always gluten-filled – but just based on how wretched I feel right now and have felt the past several hours this evening, I am so over it all. I’m actually quite prone to go ahead and clip out all the stuff again, and just go back to eating how I felt really quite good last year. It wasn’t as spectacular as raw vegan felt, but it was the closest I’ve ever gotten since then. Plus, I’m not to have meat or fish or eggs where I live, anyway, so there’s no reason not to do the whole raw vegan ingredient diet again (meaning raw vegan food, but it can be cooked as desired).

Yes, that would feel really good on my body, I think. Even if I just do it as a cleanse for a couple weeks to reboot myself and my systems, it likely would be awesome for me. Plus, it certainly would help me let go of this excess fat that has been hanging around lately. Super bonus there.

Many levels of awesome would be achieved, yes.

On that note, I bid you a good night. May your digestion and mine be easy tonight.

Post-a-day 2020

Admit the problem

Well, it is semi-official: My arms are fat. Meaning a noticeable chunk of them is fat, not that they are entirely made of fat or anything.

I couldn’t quite figure it out at first, and I wondered if it was that I was getting bulky from the workouts lately, my arm muscles growing too large or disproportionately in some way (though I doubted that I was that strong, it seemed more likely than the alternative). But, after flexing everything I could in my arms, I have found that a whole layer up top will not flex but will wrinkle like cellulite when prompted (read “squeezed”).

I can’t tell if I’m utterly distraught or just disappointed or annoyed, or if I haven’t even begun to react to it yet, because it is so terrible to me.

I’m leaning towards the lattermost, actually.

It’s kind of funny to me how my arms would make me automatically happy, whenever I saw them or saw their reflection in a mirror or something… but now, one of my greatest tiny delights in my everyday has disappeared…

I suppose that the socially acceptable lesson here is to learn to love myself no matter what, to appreciate and love my body at any stage or state of life. And I value such a view. However, it is exactly the fact that I have not valued and loved my body lately that I am in this current situation. If I had respected my body for the beautiful thing that it is, I would not have been so terrible to it, filling it with minimally nutritious (if at all) foods, and hardly doing enough exercise as it deserves to be well kept. So, while I do love my body, I have zero intentions of keeping the arms as they currently are. The fat has got to go – it will be on the fast breath train out of here, beginning tonight, when I sleep. (In case you didn’t know, that’s technically how we release fat from our bodies, is through breathing, once all the breakdowns happen inside our cells.) Tomorrow begins my return to fully taking care of my body both in terms of food and in terms of physical activity.

I know myself. I have been doubting this whole food regime I first took on last summer for the past seven months. I wanted to get back on it, but I just couldn’t get myself to do so. I needed a solid reason, not just one in my head, one with no genuine foundation. Now I have a foundation: eat as I have been eating, and, despite the exercise, I will not have the body and arms I want to have. Theory tested and proven now. Goodbye, not super-healthy foods!

And phew! Thank goodness for that.

🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Bedtime chats

My head hurts, my upper neck is aching, my mouth is somewhat dry, and I can barely hold my body up and keep my eyes open…, yet I am extremely satisfied.

I somewhat spontaneously called a friend of mine who lives in Australia, and we had a lovely nonsense hangout chat while he grocery shopped (until his phone battery practically died).

Turns out that he hasn’t been doing a great job on managing his physical fitness this past year-ish, and so we might just have become check-in buddies for one another’s fitness.

While I am still super fit, technically, I haven’t been working out lately, and I really want to get myself back into it.

Having someone else work together with me, in a way, could be a wonderful step for this for me.

I was just thinking today and yesterday how I missed having a gym buddy, and how I kind of wanted a new one somehow…, and, perhaps, here one might be.

And, as he said, it also would be helpful for us in terms of putting us in regular, frequent contact again.

Long-distance friendships take effort, but they especially require both parties to be at least somewhat aware of the time difference… when only one friend knows the time difference, it adds for lots of confusion and little actual talking. 😛

So, anyway, we might have weekly check-ins with one another now regarding fitness…, and I think it might be just what I need and want right now.

That and sleep….

Goodnight!

Post-a-day 2020