Deconstructing the Meme

I’m such a bad blogger. I say I’m going to write about something and then I get lost over at You Tube watching Melissa Etheridge videos. I seriously at one point loved her so much I thought I might be gay.

Anyhoo, regarding my current motivation for (lately given this damn plateau) my working out 2-3 hours a day and dedication to this “healthy lifestyle”, whatever that is - now I just do it because it feels a whole lot better than feeling like crap - which is exactly how I felt when I started this journey. I felt like I wanted to die. I don’t feel that way anymore. At all.

I quit smoking in September 2005. I gained 20lbs the first two months. 40lbs by Christmas. That was on top of the however many I had to lose at the time, say 25lbs.

I bought a gym membership, jeez, before I quit smoking, maybe February of 2005. In March of 2007 I decided to actually use it. By that time, I’d lost enough weight that I could actually bring myself to spend significant amounts of times in public without feeling totally embarrassed and humiliated by my appearance. Should I have felt that way? Absolutely not. But I did.

Sometime in May I started noticing this guy at my gym. He has what I consider to be a perfect body - not too bulky and pristinely proportioned is the only way I can describe him. That and he just looks healthy. Oh and those eyes. He has killer eyes. And the way he carries himself. He is the quintessential alpha male. He’s not out to prove anything, he just *is* alpha male. That or he’s a helluva faker.

I call him “The walking pheremone”. It’s like I have this sixth sense when he’s around. I can be mindlessly doing cardio just looking around the gym at nothing, see a part of his body, say a bicep or forearm and I know it’s him. Several times, for seemingly no reason, I’ve looked toward the gym entrance to see him walking in. I’ve been doing bench presses, instinctively turned my head during a rep, and my eyes lock on him. I don’t normally look around when I’m doing a set of anything - but if he’s around? I’m looking at him.

So, for nearly a year now I’ve been lusting after this guy. I was 30lbs heavier when I first started noticing him and his perfection. There was no way I would ever have a chance with him looking, much less feeling the way I did.

I decided that I was going to look like him. Well, the girl version of him. I wanted to at least feel like I might be attractive to him. I couldn’t know for sure because you never know someone’s “type”. But, I could at least in my own mind measure up to what I assumed were his standards of beauty. My goal was to be what what I assume he would find attractive - that is, not fat, in shape, someone similar to him in terms of fitness and physical appearance. I wanted to “get naked” with him. Back then I couldn’t let him see me naked because I couldn’t stand to see me naked.

So, my prime motivation, aside from feeling good and not wanting to kill myself(!), has been sex. Did I mention I’m a Scorpio?

You follow Scorpio Adam Ant’s views on sex. He said, “I like sex. My songs are about sex … sex is my life. I just find it the most exhilarating experience, and I think it should be done on stage.” You’d join his band if you could.

Around September or so I started noticing him noticing me. Finally. Though I can’t be sure if that’s because he noticed me noticing him first. I remember once when we were walking past each other I looked him right in the face. Ordinarily my head went down when he was anywhere near me. He didn’t look directly at me but did this kinda of side glance thing at me, our eyes met, and he quick looked away. He looked scared. He looked like he’d just been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been. It was quite funny. Was he afraid because I scared him with my incessant staring? I dunno. I wasn’t like gawking at him.

Recently he and I have started talking a bit. Oh, and he keeps touching me. Actually the first time we talked was when we were walking past each other and he literally grabbed my arm and pulled me to him. He complimented me on how hard I work. I think he likes sweaty, smelly, out of breath women! Yay!

Just recently we were talking about how sucky boring cardio is. I’d just done 40 minutes and for some odd reason he asked me if I was going to go do more. Then he said something to me. I don’t remember his exact words because I can barley focus on anything but my wobbly knees when he’s near me. First he said “I hope you don’t mind my saying…” then he said something about how all the work I do “works” for me. In other words, he was telling me he thought I looked good. It was so cute. He was clearly not at all comfortable saying that to me. He must know what my ordinary response to men is who act like I should be honored that they find me attractive. He didn’t act like that. He knew exactly how to work me. omg lol.

I wanted to say, “Well, maybe, but I’m a master illusionist. You haven’t seen me naked. Yet.”

I didn’t say that though. I just laughed and thanked him. What little ability I had to communicate was drowning in his pheromones at that point and I kinda hung out for a minute and then just smiled and said, “OK well, see ya later.” Had we been anywhere else I might have thrown myself on top of him. I don’t know if he took that as me turning him down or something? He’s been kinda cool towards me since then. I just had NO clue what to do or say after that besides rip my damn clothes off.

Apparently, drugs and alcohol, caffeine or whatever makes you feel good, is well, not so bad! Well, for some of us anyway.

Martin says that in the last weekend, he’s completed a 13-mile half marathon that took him a little more than five hours. It would have been faster, he says, but he says he stopped for a beer and a cigarette.

Stress on the other hand? I hear it kills.

I smoked cigarettes for over 20 years. I never got a wrinkle until I quit. I’m starting more and more to look my age. Up until I quit I was still sometimes asked for ID when I bought cigarettes. I quit when I was 40 years old.

Nicotine is a definite stress reliever for me. I still crave when I get stress, even good stress. And yes, it still works. Yes, I’ve relapsed a few times in the past 2.5 years.

After I’d quit, so many people would ask, “Don’t you feel so much better now?” Uhm, nope. I didn’t. I felt like killing myself for the first three months after I quit. Was that supposed to be a good thing?

I’m not exaggerating. I remember sitting on the toilet one day wishing I had the nerve to kill myself. I literally felt trapped here - here, in hell. That’s the worst feeling. I can’t even explain it. I wanted to die but I couldn’t die and that made me feel even worse.

I’ve since read that the effects of nicotine can mask depression. Who knew?

The only thing that kept me here was the thought of my kids and the fact that some stranger would find me in my hadn’t been cleaned in four months bathroom surrounded by my dirty underwear. My damn ego gets in the way all the time. It’s kind of funny now. It was so totally not funny then.

I remember what set me off too. It was getting on the scale and seeing I’d gained 20lbs in about a month. 20lbs on top of the 20-30lbs I already needed to lose. Of course I didn’t stop there. I added 20 more pounds so that I ended up being the heaviest I’d ever been (outside of pregnancy).

I remembered back to how I felt while losing that weight back in the ’90s. I realized I was either going to have to do all that work again, work I swore I’d never have to do again, or stay miserable.

I’d replaced my nicotine addiction with sugar. I was going to have to give that up too? That was going to leave me “feeling”. God, give me numb. Numb is soooo much better.

Trapped again.

Oh, and the title of this post is a line from Queens of the Stone Age’s “Feel Good Hit of the Summer”.

In March 2006 I weighed in at 213.6 lbs. I don’t remember having any motivation for wanting to lose, other than, “I don’t want to be this fat”. I lost about 15lbs. I was no longer “that” fat and hit a brick wall. I kept going, banging my head against “The Great You Will Never Lose Weight. Ever!” wall. Two years later, I’m no longer banging, I’m climbing.

How many times have I started a “diet”? Probably something like 100 times I’m guessing. How many times have I lost some weight and then became complacent? Aside from my very first attempt when I lost and then got pregnant, I’ve stuck with it until the end once - not counting this time because this time there is no end. This is how I live. This is me. This is who I am.

Why so many failed attempts? What’s the difference between failures and success? I believe it was the differences in motivation.

Ordinarily, my motivation for being a “diet” is to lose weight so that I would look better, feel more confident. Like myself. Who did I want to look better for? Was it me or was it for other people? I mean I really don’t have to look at myself all that often. So, if I looked good to others then I could finally like myself, feel better about me? Sound reasonable?

Let’s be honest here, I wanted to look better so that men would be attracted to me. Funny because when they ogle rudely or make comments I’m offended. Once someone told me I was attractive and my response was, “Yeah, so, what’s that mean? You wanna do me?” Poor guy. It was sometime after that I gained this last round of weight. So, how motivating was being attractive to me? Not so apparently. Go figure.

My last successful attempt to lose weight came after I’d knocked my 3 year old over in the snow accidentally with my huge ass. Well, that didn’t get me going, but it sure helped. And it wasn’t because I didn’t want to hurt my child. It was because I didn’t want to feel guilty for hurting my child. There’s a subtle or, well, not so subtle difference there.

Sometime shortly after knocking my daughter over, face down in the snow (ugh), I was watching a surveillance video from one of the stores my ex and I owned. A fat girl walked by. I felt sorry for her, I could certainly sympathize. I knew exactly where she was emotionally and mentally. I wanted to help her. I wanted to show her compassion, to show her that someone cared for her despite her weight. I didn’t want her to feel the hurt I knew she was feeling. I wanted to be her friend.

A few seconds later I realized that person I was looking at was me! I’m mean really me! It was me on the video but I didn’t even recognize myself! It was truly a surreal experience. I think it was then that it became clear to me that I’d knocked my daughter over because I didn’t realize how large I really was.

So, in attempt to heal myself, to take care of my emotional and mental health, I signed up at Weight Watchers. I wasn’t there to get myself looking “hot” or get my butt into skinny jeans.

One of the things my leader talked about often was motivation. She always preached about proper motivation. Fitting into a dress for an upcoming event is not a good long term motivator. What happens when that date passes? What happens if your loss slows and you realize you won’t make it into that dress?

Are you losing weight to please others? If so, don’t bother. Even though I’d lost 72lbs my ex never gave me a single compliment. Never. Of course he never criticized my weight either, and so, I’m thankful for that.

At one time my mother tired to motivate me to lose. She tried to bribe me with money for a new wardrobe. She tried to scare me by suggesting that my (now) ex would leave me for someone more attractive. Funny, because he ended up leaving for someone less attractive!

I’ve found that motivation needs to come from within. From deep down inside. It needs to be based on things that are core to who I am. It has to be based on what I want for myself, for reasons that mean something to me.

Lasting motivation does not exist outside of ourselves. Who really cares enough about a dress you’ll hate in a year, or a one day event you won’t remember, to do the hard work it takes to lose weight. Do the benefits, the dress, a party, outweigh the costs?

How can one be motivated to want to make the life changes required to please someone who only loves you if you look good to them? Do you really want to even be with that person? If so, ask yourself why. Should you be with that person?

Up next, my motivation for this attempt.