Weight For It. No, Don't

I struggled over whether to make resolutions this year. Last year I didn’t, I just tried to cook more at home and eat healthier. I figured since this was more of a general life change and less of a random “I’m going to lose 10 pounds!” resolution I’d stick to it better. Guess what? It’s now 2016, and I am yet again planning to work on cooking more because I totally stopped doing it for the last few months of 2015. So my theory may have been flawed.

But I don’t want to make resolutions that are negative. Thinking things like “I won’t eat out” or “I’ll stop drinking diet pepsi all the time” aren’t particularly healthy mindsets either. After much debate, I decided I am making resolutions for January. At the end of January I am going to see how I’m doing with them and evaluate for the next month, and so on, and so forth. My resolutions are simple:

1.     Cook at least two recipes a week.

2.     Workout at least two times a week.

These resolutions will come in handy since my family’s weight loss competition is starting once again. My goal with this competition actually is rarely to lose weight, but rather to stay accountable to myself for making healthier choices, because I know for example that staying in all weekend and eating nothing but leftover Chinese food tends to show up on the scale. More importantly, it’s also doing horrible things to my body and organs, but that’s not so easily visible. The scale is.

Which brings me to my real topic of the day. Weight.

I normally avoid talking about anything I know people have strong opinions on, because I like to avoid conflict. But I am getting FUCKING SICK AND TIRED of weight shaming.

Notice, I did not say fat shaming, although that’s deplorable too. I said weight shaming. Because here’s the thing boys and girls. Pay attention, and you’ll notice it’s going BOTH WAYS.

The entire idea of body weight in general is an interesting concept. I say interesting, because basically we’re taking one measurement of a human being and using it to define them. What’s even more interesting about this concept is the fact that weight can only tell you so much. The composition of each person’s body is unique. 140 pounds on me can look completely different than 140 pounds on another girl, even if we’re the same height.

Using a cooking example (since by god I’m going to cook more, just you watch), let’s say a recipe calls for 1 pound of squash. You’re hardly ever going to see that, because, spoiler, THERE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS OF SQUASH. If I use a pound of butternut that’s going to be a very different recipe than if I used a pound of spaghetti squash. Does that pound include the original squash, skin and seeds and all? Is it just the cubed portion? What does that even mean?

So when I’m reading a book and it’s says “she was about 100 pounds soaking wet” as some kind of compliment, I get angry. What does that tell me? Is she short and taunt, with a lot of that weight coming from muscle? Is she taller and looking rather unhealthy? Why does one characteristic mean so much?

I understand that weight IN COMBINATION with other factors can be used to get a general idea of a person’s health. It’s an easy measurement to get, so a lot of times it becomes the defining factor. That’s wrong. Now if you’re over or underweight and have OTHER UNHEALTHY WARNING SIGNS or live a GENERALLY UNHEALTHY LIFESTYLE, that’s something to worry about. However I do believe it’s entirely possible to not fall exactly in the category that stupid ass chart says your weight should be, and still be healthy. So suck it.

 Sadly, people take it a step further and use weight to judge

people in general. This is wrong. Fucking duh this is wrong. What people to seem to get that’s even more wrong is to combat this by DISPARAGING THE OTHER WEIGHT GROUPS.

The thing is, we are so used to judging ourselves in comparison with others, and we see things in black and white. Either being skinny is good, or being curvy is good. So in order to feel good about being curvy, we put down the “skinny bitches.” In order to feel good about being thin, we put down the “fat hoes.” What the flying fuck?

I understand this feeling. I get it too. I’m working on it. It’s all tied in to the problem with women accepting their beauty, which we’ve already discussed. With weight, it can be even harder, because while there is no firm definition of beauty, weight is definable. Being a size two versus ten is definable. And if we’re being told that one of those sizes is better, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing it.

Please don’t. Please don’t for one second think that your weight makes you who you are. If you are using 2016 to make weight-loss related goals, do it as a general part of BEING HEALTHY and for the love of whatever god you believe in, be careful. It is so easy to start with good intentions and become too focused on that scale, so that you’re now easy prey for unhealthy ways of losing weight, body dysmorphia, or an eating disorder.  

It can be a struggle to change this mindset. Watch out for yourself. Watch for how certain media forms or people in your life make you feel. If it’s negative, get away from it. Make 2016 the year you really start to care about and take care of you. 

Goals and Rules

Welcome to 2013! I’m feeling pretty good about this year so far. For one thing I’m up and moving, which typically isn’t the case on New Year’s Day.  For another I have chicken soup on the stove and it smells delicious.

Anyway, this is the time of year when we reflect on the past and plan for the future. Now last year instead of making resolutions I just made some general goals for the year. This year, I’m taking that one step further. I’m going to have my goals, and also have some rules. Kind of the dos and don’ts for 2013. Most of my goals are actually going to be some variations on last year’s, so let’s start with a recap!

Goal 1 LY (last year): Write one page a week.

The nice thing about the way I interpreted this goal was that averaging was acceptable. Thus if I wrote 4 pages one day I could really count it for the whole month. I stuck to it pretty well too until last month. However, I think I need to amp it up this year.

Goal 1 TY (this year, duh, keep up with me here): Write two blog posts a month, finish second part of fanfiction story, and write ONE ORIGINAL STORY BY THE END OF THE YEAR.

That last part is the most important. The whole idea of writing whatever last year was to ease back into writing fiction. I’m not going to put any restrictions on how long this original story will be, but by god I will write something, even if it’s short.

Goal 2 LY:  Work out eight times a month.

Totally nailed this one! I really counted it more as jazzercising at least eight times a month, which I still managed to do. So to make it more challenging…

Goal 2 TY: Work out ten times a month and make Club Jazzercise by November 1st.

Club Jazzercise is for when you get 150 jazzercise classes in a year. I am very much on the verge for last year. I’ll find out tomorrow if I made it or I was one off. I am freaking determined to make it this year. You get a shirt and everything. Plus the mad street cred. Now if you know any sort of math you’ll realize that going to jazzercise only 10 times a month won’t get me to Club Jazzercise. This is taking into consideration the busy months when I don’t have as much time between traveling to make it to class. I plan to go far more often than that.

Goal 3 LY: Cook more new recipes.

This was rather a crappy goal as I didn’t really define it well. What’s “more?” One? Two? I did decent at it the beginning of the year. I also started baking bread which was new for me.

Goal 3 TY: Cook home more often instead of eating out all the time or making frozen food.

I was doing SO good cooking for myself at first last year and then got lazy. Now again, this is very open to interpretation but that’s because with my crazy schedule I don’t want to say something like “cook three times a week” and then stress because I’m not home to do so. Goals should be something to work towards, not something to freak over. This also ties in nicely with my brand new goal:

Goal 4: Eat healthier.

This goal is not yet fleshed out as I need to do some research. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I don’t believe in calories. I still don’t, and calories have nothing to do with this goal so I can’t just look for low cal options.

My family has joked for years that I’m going to die at 30, and that age is inching ever closer. I want to LIVE.  Apparently everything I eat is bad for your cholesterol & heart. My family also doesn’t have the best record with healthy hearts. I don’t want to completely change my diet, but I figure a few small tweaks might keep me alive a bit longer.

So those are the goals for the year. Now for the rules. I’ve actually had great success with rules before. I like having order in my life. I’m also stubborn about sticking to things, so rules work excellently for me. A lot of times I’ll also set up consequences for when I don’t follow the rules. I’m not quite that motivated this year.

Rule 1: Only three unnecessary purchases for myself are allowed per month.

Clearly groceries and house stuff are considered necessary. I never include books in any kind of budgeting rules, and I consider them necessary for my sanity anyway. This is more things like clothes, movies (buying to own, going to the movies is an activity and doesn’t count), and random mini objects.

Rule 2: DO NOT book bad hotels.

I already know I’m going to struggle with this one, but it’s necessary. Since when I travel the client has to cover the charges, I am in the habit of staying at cheaper hotels. Generally this works well. After multiple bad experiences though I am determined to step it up a notch and stay more consistently at hotels with better reviews even if they cost like $30 more a night.

So those are the plans for the year! Here’s hoping for a great year for everyone with lots of fun, happiness, and free t-shirts.