Moving forward

I am experiencing a love/hate relationship with my body right now. Which is nothing new, really, but it's pushed to the front burner for several different reasons.

Here's what I love about my body:

1. It was able to grow and give birth to the most beautiful child in the world. I mean, sure, it took two years of pleading, coaxing, cajoling and finally pharmaceutical cattle prodding to get it started but it finally happened and I had a healthy, uneventful pregnancy and recovered so quickly from my c-section that I was able to enjoy every single minute with my new baby. (I'm going to cut my body some slack about the whole breech-caused c-section thing by blaming that entirely on my daughter, who obviously felt the need to call the shots and do things her way from the beginning...little stinker.)
2. It successfully completed a sprint triathlon. I mean, really. I'd have never in a million years thought I could do that, but my trusty body didn't give up and just kept plodding forward to the finish line. And I wasn't even hardly sore the next day. Or the next. I am amazed at both its ability to finish and to not punish me afterwards for doing it.
3. It's generally, by and large, unbelievably healthy. I have no major issues to speak of, and any pain it gives is wholly my fault for doing idiotic things like dancing drunk on a tarp-covered gym floor or insisting on carrying 87 pounds of camera gear everywhere I go.

Here's what I hate about my body:

1. It's about 40 pounds overweight. Which is annoying as hell. And makes me snore. (I'm convinced the snoring is because of the weight. I have done no medical research to back this up...it's just a gut feeling. When I was lighter I did not snore. As much.)
2. Boobs. I have way too much boobage. Boobs are overrated and, literally, a pain in the neck (and back). I'm fairly sure mine will be surgically reduced sometime in the future, but right now I need them to balance out the
3. Hips. Well, the hip-region, actually, which includes the butt and thighs. I'm really just a disaster from the neck down. No, wait, can't say that entirely because currently I have this wacky
4. Hair. I know that I am a short-hair girl. Have been for a long time. I like the ease of short hair, and the fact that it's pretty consistent. It's hard to have a bad hair day with short hair...there's just not much of it that can get messed up. I've had cute short hair and really awful short hair (you definitely need the right stylist when you're going short, otherwise you just look like a boy, or a chemo patient). And then, every few years, I get antsy and decide to grow out my hair. Which is where I am now. Six months into grow-out stage.
   
   I look like an idiot. First of all, when making the decision to grow it out, I seem to have forgotten that a.) I do not have "good" curl and b.) I do not have thick hair. Both of which add up to a frizzy, limp mess (yes, I know, you're wondering how hair can be both frizzy and limp at the same time...trust me, it's unfortunately entirely possible). Second, I am remembering that I like short hair because I am definitely styling-challenged. Or really lazy when it comes to my hair. Most likely it's both. Third, I am tired of being addicted to hair color, which is a hard habit to break once you've started. So now I have roots over two inches long and they would miraculously go away with a cut, thereby breaking the cycle of color dependency.
   
   So I'm looking at short hairstyles again and watching M shake his head and say woefully, "But I like your hair long." The kicker was yesterday when I was going through old images looking for ones to enlarge and print on canvas. Naturally, in going through Zoe's huge archive, I found several pictures of myself taken with her, and more of myself from our vacation last year. In every picture where I have long hair it looks bad. Just...bad. Awful, really. In every picture where I have short hair, it looks cute. Especially a great style I had during the vaca where it was a deep red. Sigh. Time to cut it off again.

The good news is that all the things I hate about my body can be fixed. Some immediately (hair) and some with a little bit (okay, a lot) of effort and a few months (the weight). So, here we go. Deep breath.

I'm starting today. A new me, with new eating habits. I skipped the calorie-laden mocha for some tea with honey. I have thrown away the stash of chewy Sprees that's been residing in my desk drawer.* I have a reasonable meal planned for lunch, and I will enlist M's help, once again, in eating proper proportions at dinner. (Poor guy...he gamely agrees to this every time I get on one of these kicks, knowing that in less than a week I will scowl at the small plate he sets before me and call him The Food Nazi.)

I have to do something, though. I am miserable and it's affecting my writing, my photography, and my overall mood. I'm letting things like a busted garage door (and busted tea machine, and busted printer, and busted web site where I'm trying to order canvas prints, and busted plane delaying M's arrival home by a day...d*mn, a lot of things are breaking right now) get me down, which is unlike me. I prefer to be happy and cheerful and look for the silver lining. I'm hoping that by sticking my aspirations out here in front of ya'all, that there's some accountability here. Like, oh shit, I just told everyone I'm trying to lose weight and so I damn well better do it. It's the Weight Watchers meeting-accountability theory, only cheaper and with people who I know and love.

Here's to taking hold of one's life and doing everything in one's power to improve it.

*Let's not get crazy here, folks. I left the little package of M&M's in there, you know, as back-up. I read it's best to not quit something cold-turkey/start something with guns a-blazin' as you're just setting yourself up for failure. Baby steps...baby steps...