I want to lose weight. Ten pounds: from 180-ish to 170-ish.
That’s not really my intention. What I really want is to have a healthy, strong body. And not just for its own sake (though that matters to me). I want a healthy, strong body so I can look good.
Yes. Vanity.
That’s not the point of today’s entry, but it’s an interesting revelation of truth that didn’t come about until I started hammering the keyboard.
Here’s what I came to say.
The exercise of dropping weight (for me, the layer of fat around my waist) isn’t a purely physical exercise. It isn’t all about the things I do: what I eat, how much I eat, when I eat, how many calories burned, what I do for exercises to burn more calories.
In fact that is the lesser part of the effort.
Let me say it clearly. I was afraid of the physical sensation of hunger. That’s not my biggest impediment. Hunger pangs are rare, transient, and can be handled with a bottle of water or a cup of coffee and some chewing gum.
The greater part of the exercise is emotional. Am I willing to be in occasional distress (the inside man) in order to change my appearance (the outside man)?
Am I willing to be agitated, lonely, sad, bored . . . all of those things . . . and stay away from the refrigerator?
I contend that losing weight (there must be a better mental framing for this project) is really an inside job. How many times have I gone to the freezer and grabbed some ice cream for no reason, as if compelled to fall to the ground by gravity? “Eat your feelings” indeed.
Run straight into this shitstorm. Welcome the feelings. Sit, aware of them. This, too, shall pass.
That’s what works for me. The weight is slowly, slowly falling away. It’s an inside job.