Goal Weight: 175 lbs
I watched Julie and Julia. You've probably seen it or, at least, heard of it. It's about two women. One wrote a cookbook. One wrote a blog and then got published and wrote a book or two. That's the very gist of it.
In the movie, it makes it seem so easy for Julie or Julia -whichever one writes the blog- to write a blog. She sits at the computer, flips her hair or scratches her head, then wriggles her fingers around and an elegant, perfectly organized blog comes spewing forth. When she's excited, she speaks extra fast, with a smile in her voice, and you end up getting excited. When she's angry, she tells a story of why she's angry without giving too much detail so if you weren't watching the movie but were just reading her blog you wouldn't know she was angry because of a fight with her husband, but you would totally believe she had a very valid reason for being angry. She made it look so easy! I know it was a movie and she practiced lines and had someone write it all for her, but it still looked easy.
It made me think I could start a blog, promise myself and whoever read it that I'd write something every day and then actually sit down to write something every day. Well, if you have been reading my blog, you would see that I have not written every day.
One thing I have learnt about blogging: It's Hard.
You can't -I can't- just sit down and wriggle my fingers. It takes me for bloody ever to think of a topic, then I gotta think of something to say about it, then I gotta think of a clever way of saying it. Plus there's titles and all of that. Plus you have to have time to sit and write. There's this and that, there's blahg blahg blahg...I could go on and on. It's hard. This is only my second installment this year, for Pete's sake.
Insert: At least a five minute montage with some kind of slow, slightly depressing song. Think of everything worth doing. Think of everything you've ever been proud of. An A+, a song you wrote, a website you built, some weight you've lost, some muscles you've built, a mustache you've grown.
One thing I've learnt about Everything worth doing: It's Hard.
As you can see by today's weight. I have lost a whopping 8 pounds since I started blahging almost seven months ago. (Which reminds me...Whoppers are on sale today... Oh, no, yesterday. Just kidding. But seriously) 8 pounds. It makes me wanna throw something thinking of how hard it is to lose weight.
I think my problem is simple. I like to eat. I like to eat good food all day long. I can try these diets or try to stop eating good food or try to run for hours, but when it comes down to it, I like to eat. Too much. I even have friends telling me they know it's time to eat cause 'Tim is getting grumpy.' I know, I know; I'm making myself sound like a crazed little piggy, but I'm working on it.
I'm trying a new thing. I actually think it's kind of revolutionary. It's not my idea, I got it from a book. But I tried cardio. Watching what I eat. Skipping meals. Organic turkey bites. Dressingless salad. Dressing less tightly. But nothing worked, until I started this. It's still going slow, cause, again, it's not easy. It's Hard.
The trick is this: Eat When You are Hungry; Stop Eating When You are Full.
Queue: Beatles, 'Revolution'
It sounds ridiculous, as if I'm a crazy person for thinking this might work, but if you actually follow the signals of your body, it tells you when to eat and when to stop. Like Derby, when he wants to eat, he cries until we make him something to eat. (Same as Tim getting grumpy) Then he eats until his little tummy is full, and he tells us -usually by crying again- that he's done. I have bad days, days where I pretend I'm hungry and keep eating just cause it's what I love doing or cause Chelsee made a something awesome and I just don't want to stop eating. But I also have good days, days where I totally pay attention to the signals, stop as soon as I'm satisfied, only start when I'm 100% hungry. And I've lost 8 pounds. But I still eat whoppers and cheese and chips, and I drink 2% milk, chocolate milk even. I have pizza and ice cream and all kinds of candy. Haven't worked out for months. And I've lost 8 pounds. It's revolutionary.
8 pounds is nothing to shake a stick at. Times it by 5, and maybe we can do a little dance or something, but it's a start.
Anyway, I started blahgging today to basically make excuses for why I'm not doing it every day. Because it's hard. But I've kind of realized, in the past half-hour, that everything we do that's worth being proud of is hard. What's to be proud of if it's not hard? If it was easy to lose weight, nobody would care to do it. If it was easy to write songs or books or poems or blahgs, who would care? If was easy to make a child, have a child, rear a child, who would stand up in front of strangers to say 'that's my boy! This is my daughter, so and so. She just got a new job. My son's going to college on scholarship. He's writing a book. My daughter plays the piano." No body would care about anything if everyone could do it without breaking a sweat.
So I'm glad it's hard. I'm glad I've been fluctuating between 198 and 202 for the past 3 weeks. I'm glad Derby throws tantrums whenever grandpa leaves the room. I'm glad Chelsee and I still sometimes argue about who's turn it is for dishes. I'm glad Maxx says and does things that make me think he's a big idiot sometimes. I'm glad it's taken me almost a year to write a novel and it's not even half done. I'm glad my beard is all patchy even though I'm 25 and I've been growing it out since the start of playoffs (Go Blackhawks). If these things weren't true, losing weight, being a dad, a husband, a friend, a future-award-winning author, growing a killer beard would be easy.
And I would have nothing in my life to be proud about.
As it is, though, I think I'm doing all right.
Thanks for reading.
