So...what the fuck am I going to do next?

Collectively over the last two years, I have probably lost around 35-40kgs. I have also gained around 30 of those kilos back in the same time period. I am, without a doubt, the definition of a yo-yo dieting aficionado. I have participated in 7 day challenges, 28 day challenges, I have fasted, I have tried shakes, I have cut out bread and I have tried a lot of other stuff too. As I started to refresh my facebook page yesterday, I saw post after post that started with something like “I am re-evaluating” or “I need to re-focus” or the dreaded “I fell off the wagon and I am back to square one” sentiment. You know, we have all said it from time to time, I just happened to have documented it, publically. And of course, because I don’t do anything by halves I make this huge dramatic public statement with a massive plan and a strict no fail attitude. Stubborn as anything I am willing to except nothing but perfection. Of course, that in itself is setting me up for a fall. Perfection doesn’t exist, but I tell myself each time I make these grand gestures that this time will be different.

Albert Einstein said Insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If this is the case [and honestly who would disagree with old Albie] I have been approaching my weight loss with insanity over the last 2 years. I have been engaging in negative, destructive and harmful behaviours masked with the buzz words of health and well being. I have started and stopped so many times, but I have never really changed my behaviours. I might have talked about it. But I never authentically addressed it. I have wiped the slate clean so much I have run out of those bulk-buy blue fake chux cloths.

The other week a memory on Facebook popped up. It sparked a significant emotional reaction. You see, the photo was of me and my fella. It was 2 years ago. And I was about 10 or 12kgs lighter than what I am right now. I sat on the tram, on the way to work and I felt so sick. I cried a little bit. I framed it as a failure. That I had lost weight and then gained it again and that I had fucked up. That was what I told myself. I reached out to friends, because I felt like a failure and that made me even more upset. A few conversations and I began the process of re framing the situation. Yeah, I had gained the weight back, but I had also experienced grief, and change, and I didn’t cope with either of those things very well and reached to food to get me through. I had gained weight but I had also made it through. Since then I have yo-yo’d back through diets, re framed as “lifestyle changes”. They followed the same pattern. Step One - Big set up, big plans. Step Two - tiny little speed bump. Step Three - complete derailment. I had a dangerous mix of high fat intake with the eventual high carbohydrate intake during a binge. It was fucked up and it was messy. I was putting so much goddamn pressure on myself. It was so unhealthy and so harmful. Retrospectively I have come to the acute realisation that during that time when I thought I was healing, I was actually doing more damage to my body trying to fix it, than if I had of just stopped all together.

So here I am. A few years down the road. I suppose you could argue that I am wiser, but in much the same position as I started in. No dramatic transformation pictures, no great story and an archive full of brave new starts and ideas that fizzed out, or crashed into a plate of fries with gravy. What am I going to do about it all now? I don’t want to make any grand announcements or set out weeks and weeks of things that honestly are just not going to happen. I am putting on foot in front of the other, I am trying not to put great, deep, terrifying pressure on myself. I am just going to take it all in and move on. Take a deep breath, embrace this new clean space, and move.