The Challenge: Day Two

Oh, the challenge!  What’s a girl to do?  I need to find some willpower to resist carbs.  Dreaded things those carbs.  I ate an entire packet of gnocci last night.  Enough for two people.  And I’m only one person.  And I ate at around 22.30.  Too late.  Consequently, despite gym yesterday (which didn’t go so well – I’ll evaluate that just now) I’m half a kg heavier today than I was yesterday.  But, no lamenting.  Just renewed effort and energy into my diet today!

Improvements I need to make.  Only eat when I’m hungry.  Eat half the amount I want to eat then wait 20 minutes and see if I’m still hungry.  Return to gym at a different time and hope that the school boys are not there making noise and dominating the equipment *frustrated face*.  How was gym yesterday?  Let’s see… I’m fitter than I thought I was, so after 10 minutes on the treadmill I’m still not even slightly tired but I can’t really do more or run faster because my leg muscles get too sore.  So although I’m not getting out of breath my legs are complaining that it’s a bit much for them.  Other than that.  Did some weights and sit ups and stretches.  Then got sick of the teenage boys in the gym and left.  Must try stay longer today.

So why am I doing this again?  Confidence, to be comfortable in my clothes… to be able to wear my new clothes and BUY A LAPTOP!

Right, well there’s the progress report!

 

Challenge: Join Me in a Quest to Get Fit and Look Good

Here’s a challenge to myself.  After losing about 8kgs last year, I promptly got into a relationship and gained about 4.  After we broke up this year, I lost about 5kgs, taking me to my lightest weight yet, just over 71kgs.  And then, I’ve stagnated for two months, gained a kg and a half and can’t seem to get back on track.  So here I am, back on my blog putting myself and my hopes and dreams out there.  Out of my head and onto a platform where I can keep track of it, and also a place where others can keep track of too.  Making myself accountable to something and someone other than the voice in my head telling me to buy the chocolates and not go to gym!

The way I go about weight-loss is setting myself a goal/reward for every kg I lose.   I’m determined to get past this place where I am now because this is always the place that I stagnate.  Around 72kgs and I just stop losing.  I’m a short girl, and BMI says my ideal weight is around 55kgs.  Now the last time I was 55kgs I was about fifteen.  It’s been a long time, and I don’t plan to get that thin.  I’m not a thin girl and I don’t want to be.  I like being curvy, and quite frankly, I think that at 65kgs I’ll be less than curvy.  But we’ll see.  When I started on my mission to lose weight last year I didn’t actually ever imagine being 70kgs.  But now that’s only 2kgs away and 65kgs is starting to look like a possibility.  I can do this.

Why do I want to do this?  To be more comfortable, and be able to buy the clothes that I love.  Sometimes, they just don’t make clothes in size 36 (read size 12 in some places).  That’s what makes it so difficult for me to lose weight… I’m not unhappy with my body.  Naked, I think I look great… it’s clothes that I have a problem with.  It’s clothes that make me look ‘fat’.  And then there’s the fitness factor.  And the health factor.  I tell myself it’s about living healthier… which it is until I go on a binge.  BAD habit.  But that’s why I’m here.  Self improvement and healthier living.  I want to be fit enough to be able to go on a hike as a last minute suggestion and not be exhausted in the first twenty minutes.  I want to be able to spontaneously sprint across a field with my friends and not be the first one to run out of breath (yes, because I am so often on a field with my friends… note to self, go to fields more with friends).  I want to walk up three flights of stairs and still be able to breathe at the top (sadly, yes, sometimes I do find myself faced with three flights of stairs).

And I know there are some people reading this who are bigger and heavier than me and they’re thinking: “You bitch.  You’re not fat, get over yourself.”  I know, I think that too when girls thinner than me go on about how fat they are.  But it’s not about how fat I am compared to you.  It’s about me.  It’s about me wanting to feel comfortable in myself.  It’s about me reaching the goals I’ve set for myself and doing something that I’m scared that I won’t be able to do.

I’ve already learnt that I love running.  I’ve always hated running.  Hated it.  In school, I used to dread it.  But now, I actually really enjoy it!  And it’s so great to see improvement. When I don’t feel like going to the gym, I just need to remember that I actually love running and must go do it because I love it!  And there’s the added bonus that the showers at the gym have hotter water than the shower at home (sad right?).  So that’s what I’m here telling you.

Join me.  Come get fit with me.  Follow my progress and test your own.  Most important of all.  Do it for yourself.  Do it your own way, it doesn’t have to be my way.  My way works for me, but it might not work for you.  Here’s my way.  I set myself goals and rewards for every kg I lose. I don’t give myself a time limit in terms of “I must be x kg by x date” because that’s just setting myself up for failure.  But my goals serve as motivation and inspiration. Here are my goals:

72 kgs: I can wear my new grey shirt that my friend gave me.  And I’m not allowed to shape my eyebrows until then.

71 kgs: I can buy new socks.  And I’m not allowed to wax my lip until then.

70 kgs: I can wear all the new summer clothes I bought a few weeks ago.

69 kgs: I can buy new underwear.

68 kgs: I can dye my hair.

67 kgs: I can cut my hair.

66 kgs: I can get a new laptop.

65 kgs: I can buy new clothes.

***

Now, you’re probably wondering how some of these work as motivations.  Well, I like that new shirt my friend gave me, and so that serves as a reward when I reach below that weight.  And no girl likes bushy eyebrows.  If I never reach 72 kgs, I never get to shape my eyebrows again.  Same goes for cutting my hair, and dying it.  While right now I’m not fussed about my hair, it looks great… soon it’s going to grow out and get split ends, and if I NEVER reach 67 kgs, then I can NEVER cut it.  As for the laptop, I NEED a new one.  This one is dying fast, The screen is almost half covered by dead pixels, and its getting slower by the day.  If I don’t reach 66 kgs by the time this one dies, I’m in trouble.  And that’s how my goals work.  So wish me luck, I’m on my way. I now that I know (think/hope) people are tracking my progress and rooting for me and egging me on, I have a reason to do it.  After all, I have to prove to you guys that I can do it.  And I don’t want to let you down.  After all, I’m just like every other girl, and if I can do it…. so can you!

72.7kg-girl OUT!

Clumsy (Fergie)

You know, this isn’t the first time this has happened to me.

This love-sick thing.

I like serious relationships and uh- a girl like me don’t stay single for long.

Because every time my boyfriend and I break up

My world is crushed and I’m all alone

The love-bug crawls right back up and bites me!

And I’m back!

How Do You Start a New Life?

I don’t feel like I’ve lived.  I feel like thus far, most of my life, I have existed.  Existed slogging away behind text books, studying so hard to pass exams that are going to dictate the rest of my life.  So when does the living start? I’m enough.  It starts tonight, after this exam.  But how do you start living?  What am I going to do differently?  I still have work that needs to be done, so do I just manage my time so that I make sure when I’m not working I’m living?  Or do I finally put work aside for fun?  But I can’t do that, not when my parents are working so hard to keep me here.

So how does one start a new life?  Well I don’t know, but I’m eager to find out.

Who Am I?

I am the girl who occasionally cries herself to sleep.

I am the girl who feels like there is a gaping hole where her heart should be.

I am the girl who misses you like the night misses the moon, beautiful but empty without you.

I am the girl who is scared to face her future.

I am the girl who is scared to face reality.

I am the girl who is open, transparent and who resents herself for that.

I am the girl who would rather breakdown talking to you than not work through the emotions at all.

I am the girl who makes maps yet is lost.

I am the girl who is not alone.

I am the girl who is loved.

I am the girl who wishes you would fight for me.

I am the girl who can’t seem to find the meaning of life.

I am the girl who is too scared to try.

I am the girl who does not want to stop missing you.

I am the girl who says she doesn’t like to give up.

I am the girl who is giving up because she’s too scared to let go.

I am the girl who needs to be more positive right now.

I am the girl who can succeed in anything she puts her mind to.

I am the girl who needs to put her mind to succeed in the thing she is not enjoying.

I am the girl who stresses about where she will be next year in case its not where her dreams take her.

I am the girl who needs to follow her dreams more and society’s restrictions less.

I am the girl who needs to set herself some goals and stick to them.

I am the girl who is beautiful.

I am the girl who graduated from university this year.

I am the girl who is living on her own and loving it.

I am the girl who dreams of writing a novel.

I am the girl who dreams of sharing her life with someone.

Difficulties of Letting Go

I guess the main difficulty with letting go is that I don’t want to.

I miss you.

I. Miss. You.

There was one thing I was sure of about life, and that was you.  Now, I’m not sure of anything.  I wish I knew what I wanted in life.  It all seems so pointless.  It is so unfulfilling.

You know, I thought you were the one who wasn’t fulfilling me.  But I was wrong.  It is me who is unfulfilled, and that has nothing to do with you.

What a Beautiful Day!

So I’m walking in the rain with no raincoat nor umbrella with my face toward the sky feeling the rain fall on my skin and the cold wind brush past, feeling the raindrops fall from my eyelashes and drip from my hair.  I’m watching everyone else scurry along under umbrellas or wrapped in raincoats or desperately running for cover to avoid getting wet and for just a second the sun breaks through the clouds to shine precisely where I’m walking as if to say: “You are right! It IS a beautiful day!”

My Survival Skill: Me

I realised a while ago that I have to live with myself for the rest of my life. I have to spend every minute of every hour of every day for the rest of my life with me.  Can you imagine spending that amount of time with any one else?  I think I would go utterly mad.  And yet I have to spend ALL that time with me.  There is NO ESCAPE!  I realised then that I have to like myself if I’m going to survive myself.  There’s no point in hating myself, you can’t spend that amount of time with someone you hate and still be alright in the end.  And I can’t disappoint myself either, because I have to live with myself later.

I don’t have to live up to society’s expectations, I don’t have to live the way my friend’s and family think I should, as long as I can wake up every morning, look myself in the soul, and know that I’ve done right by me.  Disappointing others is more bearable if you know in your heart that you’ve done the best you can.  It’s easier if you can look yourself in the eye and know you’re right.

So putting myself first, yes, it might be selfish.  But when I come down to it, I am all I have.  I am all I’ll ever have for sure.  I have to take care of me first, so that I can give to others second.  If I put 100% into myself, I can put 100% into others.  But at the end of the day, I have to climb into bed with me tonight.

So I get by by putting myself first, sticking to my values and not letting other tear me down in the long run.  I try not to hurt others or sacrifice others along the way, and I like to think that I don’t bring them down to achieve my own agenda,.  I like to think that I build them up too in the process.  Just because I put myself first, it doesn’t mean that I put others needs second, because if I did I would have to face myself for that in the morning.

This isn’t my only survival skill.  It’s just one of them.  Being true to me.  And loving myself.  And appreciating myself.  Because what if others can’t, I can’t rely on them for that, and I don’t want to resent them for letting me down.

Dear GamerBoy

I’m getting tired of sitting on these emotions.  I need to get them out.  I need you to hear my anger, my sadness, my regrets, my hurt, my pain.  I told you I don’t want to leave things unsaid, but the truth is there is so much unsaid.  I didn’t want to lose you, so I tried not to tell you my negative feelings.  I lost you anyway.

When we first got together I felt I could completely be myself with you. That changed very quickly, I don’t know when.  But I stopped myself being myself.  And I sacrificed a lot of myself for you.  A lot of which you never actually recognized or acknowledged.  You would get annoyed with me and say that I didn’t accept you for you, but in truth, you didn’t accept me for me.  Things that I didn’t like, you said I just had to live with them and accept them because otherwise I wasn’t accepting you.  Did you ever for a second consider that in doing that you weren’t accepting me for who I was?  By not meeting my needs and expecting me to accept that you weren’t going to meet them because you didn’t see them as valid you weren’t accepting me.  Ugh.  I’m so angry with myself for putting up with it.  I was so scared of a fight I just let you get away with it.  But it was down right disrespectful of you to expect those things of me and not be willing to give them yourself.  The worst part of it is that you can’t even see your double standards.

And yet I still sit here and wish you were thinking of me.  When I know you’re not.  You never were, so why would things change now that you’ve lost me?  Why do I torture myself like this?  I know, it’s because I love you, and I miss you.  And I love fiercely and strongly and I’m dedicated and devoted and I don’t give up so giving up on us goes against every fibre in my being and it makes me so angry that you would be so willing to just give up so easily.  Didn’t I mean more to you.

But all this time I keep asking myself:  don’t I mean more to myself?  Don’t I deserve more from myself?  And the answer is yes.  I need to give myself all of this before I can expect to receive it from another person.  My standards are so high though I wonder if anyone will ever be good enough.  But why should I settle?  Why should I settle for you when you’re giving me less than I deserve?  And why can’t you see what it is that you’re losing?  You love a strong, independent, hard working, fun, grounded, principled, beautiful woman.  And you’re willing to let it go because you want your independence?  Because you can’t handle the commitment?  What is it with men who want the benefits of the relationship without putting in the effort?  The effort is more than half the fun.  I guess if you can’t see it that way then I’m right, I don’t want you.

Life isn’t just fun and games.  Grow up a little.  Grow up a lot.  Life can be fun, every day can be a joy, but it will only be like that if you’re willing to put in hard work and effort.  You’re an adult now, you can’t just continue to coast along and everything will be just fine.  It doesn’t work like that anymore.  I don’t want to see you fall flat on your face, even though I can see that’s where you’re heading.  And I would have stood by you for that, but you’re not even willing to put in the effort for the woman you love.

You talk of duty and responsibility but its all talk.  Words are just words if you don’t follow them up.  What about your duty to me?  You proposed to me!  That doesn’t mean nothing to me.  Maybe it was in a moment of passion for you, but you should have thought it through.  What about my feelings?  I took that seriously.  I might be young and maybe I’m naive for having hoped but that acceptance to your proposal was a commitment that I made, and letting go of that is possibly one of the hardest things.

I knew.  I knew from the beginning.  I watched the way you treated GamerGirl, and I hoped it would be different with me, that you loved me more, but deep down I knew.  And I saw the way you could never let go of Bi-Girl, you love her so much.  You need to deal with that pain and resentment you have for her before you hurt another girl.  You need to sort out your feelings for her, work through that anger and that resentment and that love you have for her.  It’s unfair to the rest of us in the meantime.

Maybe that’s why I’m finding this easier than I expected.  Because I knew already: “The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.”  And I never forgot that with you.  And that’s the reason I let us end our relationship.  Not because I’m not in love with you, because I am.  Not because I don’t think this can work, it can (of course it would require much sacrifice on my part for a few years before you were ready to give the same amount and that’s not something I’m willing to give if the playing field is uneven).

I’m sorry.  I’m sorry it didn’t work out.  I’m sorry you fell out of love with me as soon as it got serious.  I’m sorry you couldn’t give me what I need.  I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the space you needed for yourself.  I’m sorry you began to resent me and I’m sorry you felt you couldn’t open up to me.  I owe some apologies to myself too, but I think those would be for another post.

I wish things were different.  For those first few weeks we had together, I wish things were different.  I can feel the pain inside of me, building up, wrangling, seething, burning inside of me.  I shift in my chair, I cringe and I frown and I clench my jaw as my body reacts physically to try to suppress the emotions, the anger, the fear, the hurt, the guilt before I can truly feel them ripping into me.  I can’t actually think of you properly.  It hurts too much.  But at the same time I can’t really think of anything else.  This is all just a learning, healing process and I wish I knew what to do with it and how to deal with it.

You’re so far away from me now, just like you were before.  I wish I could just get to the stage where we could be friends, like we were meant to be.  I wish I could just get to the stage where I could forgive you for the pain you caused me.  You promised you wouldn’t leave me, you promised me we would work through everything.  I think I hate myself more for giving up on those promises too.

And there are still things I can’t think of, that I can’t deal with yet.  Pains I can’t even bring myself to think about, trust issues that I still haven’t resolved.  I’m so angry with you for breaking my trust.  I’m so angry with you for putting more of yourself into a friendship with another woman than you were willing to put into our relationship.  I’m more angry with myself for letting you get away with it.  I should have left you then, because I knew things couldn’t be the same after that.

How is it that even the good memories are tainted now?  All of them tainted by this overall feeling of letdown and pain.  And all the while I’m hoping, wishing that you’re going to call and tell me what a big mistake you’ve made and that you want to try, because then I’ll know that I was wrong about you, that you are the man I wish you were.  But you’re not going to do that, and I have to learn to accept that you’re not my knight in shining armour and that you were luckier to have me than I was to have you.  Ugh.  Saying those words makes me sound like a self-righteous bitch.  But I know my self worth, and I deserve more.

I wish…

Missing Things… Giving Parts of Yourself Up… and Related Thinkings

It’s amazing how willing you can be to give up so much of yourself for a person.  And ask for nothing in return?  No, you need to get something back in return or you’re just losing yourself.

There’s many things I’ve learnt from the end of this relationship.  One of them is how resilient I am.  Another is that I know exactly how much I am worth and that I’m not willing to settle for any less than that.  It’s a good feeling.  The worst is that before this relationship I was giving myself everything I deserved, but I stopped when I was in the relationship.  I guess I was hoping GamerBoy would do it for me. But I’ve learnt that he wouldn’t, and really shouldn’t.  Investing in myself is something only I can do.  And I’m excited about doing it!

A part of me wishes he would wake up and see what he’s missing.  But I guess a lot of that comes from me realising how much I have been missing of me while I’ve been with him.  I completely changed.  He became my focus.  I wish I’d kept more of a balance and kept up taking care of myself as much as I deserve.

Regardless.  Considering I thought GamerBoy was the one… Well, I’m doing pretty well all things considered.  Then again, I think deep down I’m way too cynical to believe something like that anyway!

Like blogging, I really missed it.  But I stopped doing it because he thought it was stupid. I told myself it was because I didn’t have time but truthfully it was because I thought why do something if he doesn’t want to share in that part of my life.  I guess I have a lot of growing up to do.

I know this has been a ramble.  I’m trying to listen to music at the same time and I can’t multi-task.

Am I a better-off person for all of it?  Yes, I think I am.  That’s a good thing right?