To live free of shame

My intention this week was to start and regular exercise routine, but I have not been able to do this due to feeling unwell, which has also meant that I have not been quite as careful with what I have been eating. Therefore, my weight loss has not been so great this week though it has still gone in the right direction.

Since I cannot write about the exercise that I am doing, I have decided to write about another aspect that affects my eating habits, which is my state of mind, emotion and stress. For my emotional wellbeing to stay level and healthy, I know that I need some rest from environments that I feel attacked or uncomfortable in, which often means that at the end of a week at work I feel exhausted.

I had this year been committed to participating in the Fastnet, which is a very important race in the sailing calendar and takes place biannually over one week in August. This commitment also meant that I was required to undertake training and preparatory races almost every weekend between mid-March and the race itself.

I love sailing and it is my primary hobby, but I found myself becoming very stressed by not being able to do jobs in our flat that needed doing, and therefore leaving it all to my husband, and also by not having any time to just stop and relax.

Another aspect which led to my stress around my sailing was my weight. I found it very difficult to move efficiently around the boat and the skipper constantly mentioned the fact that I was overweight and joked about it in front of the other crew members (all men, which I prefer under normal circumstances but at moment, not so much).

This always left me feeling incredibly down by the end of a day, which I also found physically challenging, so it was doing much more harm than good in the grand scheme of things. When I have reached my goal, I will be able to go back to sailing, fully participate and fully enjoy it without feeling any embarrassment or shame about my flexibility or size.

Whenever I let myself really think about the state that my body is in, I start to feel incredibly down. I spiral into thinking that I may have permanently ruined my body and that I will never be able to reach my target weight because I have gone too far in the other direction. This thinking is not helpful for me, but I also need to be careful that I am not going into denial, as I have a real tendency to do.

I have found that for the last two weeks, knowing that I need to write this blog has helped me face the reality of the situation and change my mindset towards my weight loss. Before, I have always delayed starting a diet or a new regime by saying that I would start tomorrow or if I don’t do any exercise or eat something I shouldn’t for a couple of days, I will fool myself in to thinking that it is okay, because I can just start next week instead. Now, because I have to document how I am doing, and also what my progress is, I have clearly already started and even I cannot argue with that!

I have forced myself out of the shadows and so, though I feel uncomfortable with it, I am consciously being honest with myself and those around me about the situation and it is making a big difference to my life and mentality!

I know, however, that I will need to think of plan of what to do when, or if, this initial excitement wears off and the same issues start nagging me again, making the easiest option to just give up. I have not yet been able to think of anything, but, since I am forcing myself to be very aware of my thought processes and how I am feeling about everything in order to avoid going into denial as best I can, I am hoping that this will allow me to see the normal problems coming and preempting them instead of just failing yet again.

Next up: exercise – for real, this time!

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