Not even with a whimper (GdeE)

Table of Contents
1. A Huge Disappointment
2. A realisation
3. In which I realise I don't even need my mirror
4. Adios

Chapter One: A Huge Disappointment
Previous Weight: 66.5kg
Current Weight: 68.1kg
I have achieved this result by continuing my good eating and active lifestyle, coupled with now regular swims at the pool.  Congratulations me.

Chapter Two: A Realisation
I realised something the other day.  Three bits of information came into complete clarity for me, and now it all doesn't make sense.

Piece of Information #1
I am eating consistently quite well - keeping meals to pretty healthy standards and trying to snack on fruit and water.  Doesn't always work, but I'm doing quite well.  I am keeping up with some of my  hard-line rules I used late last year to rein in some areas of eating where I felt I was going a bit overboard.  I eat dip on a hardly-ever basis, and I am not drinking calories - no fizzy drinks, no cordial, no sugar in my tea (well okay some in my coffee but I ceased promising I'd go that far.)  I am active a lot of the day.  Sure, I don't get out and huff/puff/sweat, but my life doesn't support that sort of rubbish.  Again, we can't do everything perfectly.  In short, I am doing okay.  And my weight doesn't change and my regular pants don't get looser.  My loose pants were bought when I was pregnant.  My body quite likes being slightly pudgy.  Damn, but not major damn.

Piece of Information #2
Two friends of mine are getting married next month.  He eats a gluten-free diet, she has adopted a gluten-free diet for convenience.  And she's lost kilograms she didn't set out to lose.  Damn.

Piece of Information #3
My dear husband is on a milk-free diet.  He substitutes soy, but otherwise his diet is much the same as it used to be, which isn't perfect.  Since he has gone milk-free, he has been able to fit into pants he wasn't able to fit into before.  Damn.

Conclusion:
Despite believing that you have to cut out fat and sugar to lose weight, it seems that cutting out normal parts of the food pyramid is more effective.  Well, not really.  Cutting out food types that are notoriously difficult to digest, like gluten and lactose.  Emily Sue and I discussed this at length.  I hesitate to use the phrase "chewed the fat" for obvious reasons.

Anyway, just as I judge having a 100% hard-line diet is unsustainable and doing regular huffing/puffing/sweating exercise is unsustainable, I believe that managing a restricted diet while still feeding my children a normal diet is unsustainable in my current stage of life.

Damn.

Chapter Three: In which I realise I don't even need my mirror

Talking to Emily Sue tonight clarified a few things for me.  One is I really don't care much about food, weight, body shape and appearance outside of Skinny Cow.  I never have.  Yeah sure I would totally love to get a skinny tummy again and lose the tuckshop lady arms, but seriously, outside of Skinny Cow, I give it very little thought.  I just have to visit the issue with you girls because ... well, it's all about accountability and I haven't made gains so I feel the need to justify myself at every turn.  Exhausting.

I don't spend much time at all looking in a mirror, I don't really care how I look to other people and sometimes it shows, and I am simply so comfortable in my own frumpy skin that frankly my dear, I just don't give a damn.

I don't use makeup because I've always thought I look better without.  I don't use many hair products - just enough not to look like a total Bush Woman.  I don't buy many clothes, I don't have many updated or nice clothes, and I never look in a mirror after I put them on.  I just don't care.  I have always gained my worth through what God thinks of me and what I can do for God and his people, and I'm really happy with how I'm going in those areas.  I was raised by hard-working people from working and farming backgrounds who would have scoffed at anyone caring the slightest about their appearance beyond having no dirt behind their ears and having combed hair.  I took on that perspective and I haven't changed much as I've grown up.  I feel like saying to the world, "Take me as I am, because I don't really want to spend time talking about the cutest new little cardigan/ballet flats/shade of lipgloss with you."

A friend of mine recently said to me in a coffee shop, "But you do care, don't you?"  And the truth, which I didn't want to hurt her with was, "No.  I really don't.  I only talk about fashion, makeup, weight loss and style with you because you're really interested in it."

Tonight Emily Sue directed me to her site to watch this video.  We talked about it for a bit.

And that's when it really gelled for me. Emma Thompson, bless her heart, says "Imagine a world..." And I just shook my head in dumb wonder. That. Is. My. Life. I don't have to imagine. I have always lived in a world where I just go about my day.  Don't you all?

No primping in front of the mirror, no bothing about 'self-image' apart from my achievements and who I am in God.  Except, Emma, if I saw a zit on my face, I'd just say, "Huh" and walk away with no makeup involved.  But to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't see the zit in the first place.  Remember?  No mirror-time except for contact-lens-poking-in.

The only time that I really think about appearance is when I come here and get involved in OSC-type chat.  And that is when I am grudgingly honest and I admit that in an ideal world, I'd love to lose some kilos, which is technically true.  But that clearly isn't working within the framework of my life, so again: Damn, but I don't really mind all that much.

Chapter Four: Adios

So au revoir my cowgirls.  It's been fun riding with you.  I have been inspired by your weight losses and your exercise!  (As a side-note, I am swimming regularly now, which is exciting.  But I can't do more than that right now.)  I am off to keep on with the things I've been doing, some of those hard-line rules I started before Christmas which have been SO great, and holding myself pretty accountable in what I eat and don't eat, because a high level of accountability to self is what works for me.  But the big difference from now on will be I will be free to not care when I really don't.

Because frankly my dears, when it comes to weight loss that probably isn't going to happen, I just don't give a damn.