Be Brave in your Body.
One of my groups is doing “self-care bingo” this week and I wanted to select a couple areas to work on. One of the prompts is to write down 5 good things about myself. Here they are:
What did you feel held you back in 2021?
What have you corrected?
What are you still working to change?
My tie to emotional eating held me back in 2021, which was the year that I reached my highest weight. I felt a lot of anger and fear. While I gained much weight, I also achieved some amazing things, though. I found community with “my people” for the first time in my life; I actually feel as if I belong in several groups, and I have never had that before. I have more friends now than I have experienced in my life, and these are friends with deep connections. In 2022 I work to continue to look at my relationship with eating.
What’s your biggest non-scale victory you’ve discovered so far in 2022?
Are the scale numbers lining up with your plans? What do you plan to correct?
How will you celebrate by being active today?
My biggest non-scale victory is beefing up my social life as self-care. I lost many friends in the last two years and I decided to go out and find my people: those who are truly aligned with me. I actually DID that! And I feel closer to people and more connected than I ever had. For an introverted person, that is amazing…it’s a victory. The scale numbers are sometimes reflecting my victory. Celebrating always centers around food or retail therapy and I would like to change that but I nothing else really resonnates with me or feels like celebration.
What have you learned/noticed about yourself in the past six weeks that you hadn’t seen last year?
What ONE THING can you change immediately that’s been on your mind?
Take a walk with me today…can I have 15 minutes of your day?
I think that I am pretty self-aware. But I have become more outspoken about who I am and what I believe to be right in the last year. I am more capable of speaking my truth now. One thing that I could change immediately is my eating pattern. I can focus more on the daily rather than the weekly.
Today’s Question in Fat 2 Fit MFP Group:
What was your number one goal for 2022?
How’s that going?
What’s today’s plan?
My goal for 2022 was to stay open to the chaos. Checking in with myself, I am very happy with how I continue to combat my challenging habit of numbing out when things get ugly. I am getting better at setting boundaries so that I can feel safer in an “opened” inner space.
Today’s plan is to keep focused on my hydration, as that is so often the missing link in any day, as I drink so little.
This week I am responding to some prompts from my “Fat 2 Fit” weight loss group in MFP. I joined the group in January and have found myself feeling both inspired and overwhelmed. The following is today’s question:
What was your biggest regret from 2021 in your health routine (fitness, nutrition, water intake, etc.)?
How has that changed?
What’s on tap for today?
“Regret” is not the perfect word for me, as regret is something that I do not feel. Even horrible experiences are not ones that I regret. I feel grateful for challenges in my life, and I always try to see how I can use them to move forward. But, I will reframe the question for myself, because I understand the essence of the question.
2021 saw the biggest weight gain I have ever experienced in my life. I am currently at my personal heaviest weight. When I look back to the last year, I am not sure about why I have gained this weight. My go-to answer would be mishandling stress from the pandemic — and that makes sense, and it is true. My deeper answer is that I wanted to gain weight; a part of me must have wanted that in order for it to happen. So I look at it, and ask myself why I would want to feel this way.
Of course, answering a deeper question like that requires a lot of personal responsibility, but I am not afraid of that. I have always been afraid to gain weight. In fact, being muscular and fit has driven me since I was 16; I was obsessed with how I looked, being beautiful, strong, desirable. I’ve held on tightly to that and I have never really let it slip until this last year. A part of me, I think, has always wondered what I would do if I were fat, if I could let my hold on my beauty go…who would I be then?
Honestly, I know I’ve gained weight in order to explore this, on a subconscious level. It’s been eye-opening. So much of my worth centers on my beauty. But I am curious! I want to see where this can lead me, how I am going to deal with it, how I am going to feel, whether I can use this as an opportunity to step out from behind my mask. When people see me as common or fat or ugly or old, can I maintain my worth in my own eyes?
My “regret” is that I am so attached to how I look. I have done well with navigating through it, lots of positive self-talk and affirmations. And yet, I cling, in part, to what others want me to be.
Today, what’s “on tap” is more of the same. Being present in a plump body for the first time, allowing myself space to feel that and witness that. And working toward something truly stronger as I manifest, through highs and lows, who I really want to be.
Today’s highlight was absolutely Irish Step Dance, as far as movement goes. The day was rainy and I did not get in the walk I had planned. But I had fun dancing.
| Weight | Body Fat | BMI | Hips | Waist | Bust | Thigh |
| 140.2 | 27.4% | 24 | 38.5 | 32.2 | 38 | 21 |
| Movement | Duration | Burn |
| Irish Step Dance | 60 minutes | 417 |
| Calorie Goal | Calories | Other Nutrition Goals |
| 1200-1300 | 1343 | No sugar |
| Self-Care, Parenting, Stress, Joy, Balance, Writing |
| Knitting and watching a show with my daughter; making a video blog post; singing Christmas songs; physical. |
Moon Bodies 