Stick a Fork In Me and Turn Me Over; I'm Done.

Hi, I'm Lydia. I lost.

Or, alternatively, stick a fork in me and eat me, and gain a freakish amount of weight. Your choice.

While I do still have five long, luxurious days of this challenge left, I can say with confidence that based on history, science, and carbohydrates, I will not be losing 10 pounds in this first 10 weeks of 2010. Despite the attractive numerical majesty of 10 in 10 in 10, I will most likely be cantering past the finish line at 5 in 10 in 10, which is significantly less than 10. In fact you might almost call it half. Five is not majestic. Five is not success. I didn’t do well with the diet, wasn’t consistent with the exercise, failed to pay attention most days, and on other days did weird things that probably hurt me more than they helped me. I scrambled through this challenge like those people in the movie 2012 trying to escape yet another crack in the ground in yet another vehicle, but instead of scooting out of the way at just the last minute, I was engulfed in fireball after fireball, fell down pit after steaming pit, and instead of emerging at the end miraculously unscathed with eyebrows firmly in my hairline, I am pretty scathed. My eyebrows are down. It sucks to lose.

Therefore, I have decided to rewrite history, and pretend that instead of actually losing 10 pounds, my challenge was to put myself in a position where losing 10 pounds mattered, instead of drifting along through my life as I have done for the last dozen or so years, not thinking about it at all. In this, I have succeeded. Let’s look at the changes I’ve made over the last 10 weeks:

1. Booked a trip to France for the summer. I care, truly madly and deeply, about losing weight pre-France. I do not want to be huffing along through the Alps, struggling and sweating, as my ridiculously fit husband and glorious children cavort along like a pack of haughty gazelles. Also, I am going to have pictures of myself, in France, that I can never take back. When I say, “Honey, get a picture of me by this floating chateau!” I will not be able to approve or control the angle or result. It will just go to the internet. Sobering.

2. Started a rock band. Recognizing that I had not been on a stage in a long time, recognizing that it was something I always wanted to get back to, and recognizing that as I tumble toward 40, the time until my wrinkles overtake me is actually getting shorter, not longer, I formed up a punk rock duo with another mom that I know. We have practiced weekly, we’re working up a set list and we’re planning to gig out. Boy, do I want to be thin for that. Nothing says “No, I really can’t pull off a stripped down Nirvana song” like bulging thighs. Sobering. 

3. Signed up for that miserable, wretched, torturous stair climb up the Dominion Tower in Norfolk to benefit the Up Center. There are events connected with this climb coming up, like boot camp training sessions on the actual stairs, YMCA training sessions on the YMCA stairs, and practice runs in parking structures, that will put me in stretch pants in front of other people even before the day of the event. Then there’s the event itself, and I signed up for the competitive category, which means that I will not be climbing with the nice, casual, fat people who only want to raise money for charity. I will be climbing with the hard, mean, fit people, who want to in-your-face-sparky me while raising money for charity. Sobering.

4. Started working out on the elliptical at my kids’ karate school. I sit at karate up to four times a week, up to two hours at a time, waiting for my children to be done kicking bags and waving sticks around. The school has a weight/fitness room, which I heretofore had ignored in favor of exercising my tongue with my friends in the waiting area. However, for the last week I have paddled that lousy elliptical for 30 minutes, keeping my heart rate between 120 and 140, every time I went to the school. This has the double benefit of making me exercise and also making me stand in front of a giant mirror as I exercise. Sobering.

I would have liked to finish this challenge with a haughty TRA LA! I WIN! See ya later, suckahs! I can’t do that. I have to shuffle off saying “Hey, great job,” to those who actually made it to 10, while kicking my toe in the ground and wondering, “Why didn’t I just put down that coffee creamer? Did I really need to watch Big Love? I could have been taking a walk!” Before I beat myself too severely in the feelings, however, I must recall that changes that I did make. Most significantly, I started paying attention, which can only be the beginning of better things.