*

10 pounds down 32 pounds to go!

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

It's Alive!

We had the internet at home last night and were able to operate without breaking anything just long enough to make one tiny post and order apple trees online. We got a Baldwin and a Winesap and 2 Canadian Strawberries because apparently we only like the freaky rare apple trees. Doesn't Canadian Strawberry sound like a good apple, apparently they're pink with stripes and I'm very excited about that. We ordered a few normal varieties too, if normal can be described as super yummy and withstanding of extreme cold. They come home to us in April and will bear fruit in like 10 years or something...which is why we had to start now if we want to eat a home grown apple by age 50.

In other things I want to do before I'm 50, I'm dressed like a grown-up today. The new folks have a much more strict dress policy, in theory anyway, so I'm trying to dress the part. I've been dressing pretty badly the last two years, trying to get the most out of one or two pairs of pants and a few too big tops. Wardrobe minimalism to be sure. I need to re-develop my own style and joy in clothes, I feel like it's been turned off a little too long. When I look back on it I can't help think I dressed so much better when I was fatter. I guess it seemed more important to dress nicely when I thought I looked so awful. And then there was the compulsive spending. It's easy to look great when you buy your clothes with a lot credit and very little sense.

I know I'm always connecting money and weight and I know that combination of evils is not particular to me. The two are so connected and they're both problems you have to fix from the inside out. I had to stop believing that I deserved macaroni and cheese for dinner because it was a rough day or that I deserved to wear nice clothes like the skinny girls did. There's no deserve about it. Macaroni and cheese is never going to be a healthy dinner and no matter how many fabulous clothes I bought with plastic it was never going to make my body smaller. I also had to stop believing that I couldn't do something because of my body, or couldn't do it until I was smaller. I'm still not sure which was harder to do, saying no or saying yes.

Sometimes when I look at a month or a few months worth of posts and see how very little my numbers have changed (back up again today, damn!) I get caught up in feeling like I'm not going anywhere. I have to remind myself how much I have changed. Yesterday I bought SEVEN bags of candy because there was a massive sale at Rite-Aid. Amy of, say, three years ago would A: have never admitted that, B: have opened and eaten at least one bag, C: would have left at least one bag at work for snacking. Amy of yesterday took it all home untouched and shoved it in the cupboard to bake with (Matt has this thing for M&M cookies lately). I was hungry yesterday and I never even considered hitting the chocolate. I just wanted more yogurt but I didn't have anymore so I waited until dinner. That's a big damn change in habits and choices and I need to give myself some credit for that. I forget that what will make a lifetime of health and happiness for me is keeping up a long string of tiny, good choices. I have to believe that if I keep up the little things, eating well and enjoying exercise, in a few years I'll look back on this time and think it's exactly what I needed to do.

3 comments:

Shannon said...

Hi Amy,

I have to admit that I've been lurking for awhile now....I love what and how you write.

Your comment about the clothes and the mac and cheese is so true! First, fat clothes are terribly expensive compared to regular clothes and you pretty much buy whatever fits, regardless of style or price. I am in the stage where alot of my clothes are getting too big, but I flat out REFUSED to go and buy more clothes until I was able to shop in the regular stores. I couldn't constitute spending good money on crappy clothes that weren't going to fit. So I waited and looked like a slob. But I'm happy that I waited because some of the things that I got will last for awhile and weren't so expensive.

Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack you....but the clothes issue is really a bee in my bonnet!

And about the mac and cheese? I vote that one day a year we get to call WHATEVER we want, a 'healthy dinner'!

Lauren said...

On the days when the eating is good, the shopping is bad bad. I just cleared out my minimal savings so I could make enough of a payment on my credit card to buy plane tickets to get me and my friend back to korea. It's great that I'll be able to pay that back in the next month or two but the point is I shouldn't be maxed out on my credit card anyway from all the shopping and traveling I do. I came to korea to save and make money (and change my life) and I'm twice as much in debt now as I was then.

Amy said...

Hijacking is always welcome! I hear you on looking like a slob. I'm trying not to now and it's hard work. I found all my skirts fit now only I have nothing to wear with them, even the shoes I'm wearing today are too big.

Man, the shopping. I've so been there. Before I started really trying to put my life together I used to spend a forture on groceries. I spent on other things too but being so broke and food being a necessity it seemed better to put my shopping lust there. I had cupboards and cupboards full of crap I couldn't eat because i was on a "diet". It all went to the food pantry. I still have too much and it should go too, things I'll never eat because I'm not interested in eating that way anymore. Now whereever I am shopping I try really hard to ask myself "do I need this and why" and it makes all the difference.