My Deep Thoughts 4 U - What's Your Rush?

No, really. What are you in a hurry for? In the weight loss game, it seems that folks are all about the quick fix. (You know this…you know all of this…read it anyway.) Even in Weight Watchers, or when people are just “changing their habits”, there is an almost constant refrain of “I just lost a tenth of a pound this week” or “I’ve only lost 5 pounds in the last month” or “I’ve been working out for a year, but I’ve only lost 12 pounds” or “I stayed the same..didn’t lose ANYTHING” or, after losing for 4 consecutive weeks, “OH NOES, I GAINED A HALF A POUND!!!”

We need a new perspective on this process. We need to stop just talking about the concept that the most important thing is to “live healthy” and start really believing it.

If your idea of success in weight loss is to lose 5 pounds a week until it’s all gone, then you are *not* going to be a success. I know, I know…this is pretty easy for me to say coming on the heels of a 6.8 pound loss. But the reality is, I have a great deal to lose, so in the beginning it *is* going to go faster than someone with, say, 50 pounds to lose. And if you want to bitch about the unfairness of that, then here…you take my 336 pound ass and I’ll take your 200 and you can lose fast and I’ll lose slow and we’ll call it even.

It’s important to know what brought you to where you are. It’s important to recognize it…to look at all sides of it…to really get it in your head that the extra weight you carry is about more than just the fact that you sat at the table and ate more than you should. Calories in > Calories out may be the truth at the end of the day as far as the physics of your body, but unless you’ve got the right equation in your head, it’ll never work.

You’ve got to love yourself where you are. You’ve got to accept the you that you are *right* *now*. If you can’t accept that person, then you will forever find flaws with anyone else you become. You can hit your goal weight, but your thighs or your ass or your boobs won’t look like you thought they would. Or you’ll have the under the arm bat wings. Or your hair will have thinned some. And you will look at that you and you’ll *hate* it and go right back to your comfort food of mac and cheese or Wendy’s singles or McDonald’s fries.

I know that most of you will scoff at this, but find a way to enjoy your journey. Find a way to appreciate the wisdom of the things you learn along the way. Savor the anticipation of the next 5 pounds lost. Open your eyes to each little new thing your body can accomplish as it gets leaner and healthier.

Don’t wait until you are *there* to start living your life…to start appreciating who you are. Life is happening NOW. Grab it. Don’t live perpetually in the desire to be somewhere else.

100 In 50

I am back from my Weight Watcher's meeting and am the proud owner of One Shiny New Bookmark, which I got for coming back the second week, One 5 Pound Star (that bitch is heavy) which I got for losing my first five pounds and SIX PRIDDY PAPER CLIPS, which we collect for every pound we've lost. So yea me! I lost 6.8 pounds.

So, here's the deal Sparky, I am instituting for myself the "100 In 50 Challenge". I want to lose 100 pounds in 50 weeks. That's a safe, 2 pound per week weight loss. What is in 100 weeks, you ask? The answer is: My friend Amy's son's Bar Mitzvah in New York. There will be MANY, MANY, MANY friends there and I'm planning to stay long enough to play in the city a bit.

As I said on My Thunder Thighs, these are the things I have to look forward to if I can loose my 100 in 50:

*I will fit comfortably in the seat on the plane on the way to New York.
*I can wear some HELLA sexy shoes with whatever HELLA sexy outfit I wear.
*I will be able to dance the hora in said shoes.
*I will be able to hoof it all over Manhattan with my buddies.

So here we are at week 0:

336 pounds.
50 weeks to go.

Huh. I just put my weight out there for the entire interwebz to view. And I don't give a rat's patootey about it.

Imagine that. Funny what a decent sense of self will do for you.

In Which I Chuck the Idea for Today's Post In Favor Of Something Ever Much More Wonderful

Why are you even here reading this blog instead of over at *Results Not Typical girl????? I am NOT SO MUCH with linking, so wev, but FIND HER IN THE BLOGS I READ TO THE RIGHT. DO IT NOW!!!!

I hereby declare her to be Queen Of All Things Sparkly.

Anywho.

She's exhorting folks to toot their own horn, basically, which is an awesome thing because if we tooted more, we'd all be a little less gassy.

Stepping out into the blogosphere as I am doing here at Grits and Pieces is a huge step for me. I love the relative annonymity and fangirlish fun that is LiveJournal. I love catching up with all of my old school buds and family on FaceBook. But. I wear specific faces there. But right here...this here stuff is ALL ME baybee. No faces, no masks, nada.

So, if you are one of my old Bible Thumpin' buddies who have followed me over, you may find yourself occasionally offended by my mouth or my thoughs or my general "humanness". I have not been perfected by Christ yet, much as I'd like to make you believe I have.

If you are one of my precious Heathen friends, you may find yourself offended by the posts in which I share exactly what is in my heart...it might make you uncomfortable...it might make you think something different about the "person" I am and how I identify.

If you are one of my conservative friends or if your name is Joe, you might find yourself completely turned off by the times when I wax all poetical about my feminist viewpoint.

Likewise, if I know you through my feminazi loving blogs, you may find things I say an utterly INCORRECT SPOUTING of YOUR idea of feminism.

If you are my tree hugging friends, you may want to yell at the fact that I'm proud that I flush the toilet. (Yeah, inside joke..wot).

But THIS is ME. I'm a Christian. I'm a feminist. I'm a mommy. I'm sexually aroused by dark skinned men from California. I have political beliefs that I like to talk about. I certainly have religious beliefs I like to talk about. I am from the South and for all my fussing, I love the South. I'm fat and while I'm working on that, let me tell you....I LOVE ME...JUST THE HELL LIKE I AM. I may NOT lose another pound and I refuse to be miserable inside my own damned skin just because I don't fit someone's ideal. I'll be as healthy as I can be, both physically, mentally and spiritually. By the same token, flying sucks NOT because an airline sucks but because MY ASS IS TOO BIG FOR THE SEAT. The Fat Acceptance Folks probably wouldn't like me because while I'm all about being accepted, I don't think I need to be catered to. HOWEVER, if someone decides to cater to me, they are more likely to get my money. Hello free marketplace.

Anyway.

Wow. Verbal vomitation much?

So, here's why I'm awesome...I'm going to be me. Just me. Anyone I lose because I'm *me*, wasn't really mine to begin with yanoo?

Now, if I could just figure out how to insert that damned Smurfy Blog gif.

ETA: Well, I got the smurfy picture, but I don't have the slideshow thingy so now it just look like I have a thing for Smurfs. Don't judge me.

Y'all Hang On While I Search For My Chocolate Craving

Okay, so what gives with my body right now?  It's pretty much par for the course for me to suck on the first day of "dieting" (which, let's just do away with that word, shall we?  because it's not good for you and HELLO, the first three letters spell DIE!!!).  But.  I've been a'ight.  No hunger.  Except when I got hungry. (Funny how that happens) and then I ate something and just wrote it down in my cheap little tracker thingy.  Booya!  And TRUST me when I say there's a metric Eff-ton of Crapola going on in my life right now, so why am I not in my black and white cow suit and standing out back mooing mournfully for as much grain as I can get?

And all of those silly questions lead to the biggest question of all. (Hyperbole, much?)
Why am I so determined that I'm going to screw up re-freakin-gardless? In my head there is always a contingency plan. Okay, THIS is what I'll do when I screw this up.  Or, if THIS doesn't work, then I'll try THAT.  Why can't I just tell myself that this is going to work...because I absolutely *can* do it...I am *not* a Class A Screw Up?

I don't deserve it.
I'm not smart enough.
I'm AFRAID of DOING IT RIGHT.
What if my life doesn't change if I manage to change my life?
What if losing 50 more pounds makes all the yellow butterflies die?
What if Mark stops reading Harry Potter?
What if I grow extra chin hairs?
What if the government passes a law that says I can never get a pedicure again?

My point?  One arguement is as stupid as the next.  I'm not saying *I'm* stupid, but these excuses surely are. If I let them keep me from where I want to go (in all manner of speaking) then somebody just please come and smack my butt, and not in the good way. Plzkthnx.

In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning

This post was supposed to be titled "I'm Creepy, But That's Part Of My Charm".  But that was an inside joke.  Except that if you know me you know it's really not so much.  Ha.

And it's not *really* the wee, small hours of the morning.  In fact, it's just around 10 in the evening, but that officially makes it about two hours past my bedtime and pretty much guarantees a bit of disgruntlement on my part tomorrow.  Not much, you understand, because I am, by nature, an Oh So Very Sunny Soul.

The Watchers of the Weight was joined today.  My leader reminds me very much of a WW Leader I knew in a former life iteration and I am alternately thrilled and heartbroken.  But she is lovely.  And you could see her eyes light up when I walked into the door.  "THIS ONE WILL MAKE ME A STAR AND PUT ME IN THE WW LEADER HALL OF FAME", was clearly what she was thinking.  Bless her heart.

There was a lady with unfortunate orthodonture in the class who was a lifetime member.  There was a mom and daughter team.  And there was Carol who will be having heart surgery next week and Linda who snuck into the closet where we keep all the early 80's clothes and is putting on a fashion show.  Her goal is to lose 100 pounds and star in the remake of "Flashdance".

And they are brave.  Weight Watchers in Trussville, Alabama sits right directly in between the China Buffet and the Frontiera Grill.  You see where I'm going with this, I'm sure.  It seems like it would make more sense to put the WW next to the Fluffy Ladies Clothing store, or PetSmart, or maybe even an Open MRI office.  Right in the middle of Supreme Loaded Nachos and Seseme Chicken may not have been the best choice.  I'm just sayin'.

Fatty McFatterson has left the building

I'm so terribly original, I know.  Grits and Pieces was the name of my original Livejournal blog...a suggestion made by my very favorite Jewish American Princess.  It still kind of resonates within me regarding the kind of mental processes I have.  First:  food.   Second:  a vomitation of all sorts of other random stuff.

I have no idea what this blog will become...much like myself.  I have no idea what I will become, although you'd think after 42 years I'd begin to get some idea. But, bizarrely, the iterations of myself change on almost a monthly basis.  Schizophrenia, you say?   Nah.  I just get bored easily.

I still have that LiveJournal blog, although I've named it something else.  There is stuff that goes there that is specific to just *there*.

I participate, when I don't suck, in a wonderful blog called My Thunder Thighs.  And if I had any sort of linking and HTML skills, you'd be able to click right to it.  Alas, that would be a *no*.  It's a Weight Loss,  Body Image, Kick in the Pants, Hand Holding, wonderful kind of place.  There may be a touch of that here as well, but this is going to be mostly about me.  In case you didn't get the memo, I have replaced the Sun as the center of this particular Solar System. 

Anywhodle. I imagine there will be Weight Loss talk here, as that is a particular struggle of mine.  I'm joining Weight Watchers for the bazillionth time this afternoon.

I will probably also at varying times talk about spiritual stuff, because I can be kind of navel gaze-ish that way.  And I might mention college football, a blue-eyed boy named Nathan, a hyperactive Papillon named Chewbaka and the fact that my breasts are uneven.  It's a mixed bag 'round these parts.

So.  Hay.  And welcome.  And stuff.