So, I was driving through the city along 14th Street yesterday, and through the sweltering heat I saw many young men trudging along to or from the metro, long sleeved shirt, loosened tie with shoulders slumped and defeated and a suit jacket flung above the shoulder…and I thought to myself…poor guy, I’m glad I can wear short sleeves and skirts if I want to. The heat and humidity in DC can be downright oppressive. On the other hand, I did see a finely toned and extremely tan gentleman running on the mall, with sweat glistening over his taut arms and stomach…and I thought to myself…God bless this heat.
You know how sometimes you have these dreams, and you wake up and think what the fuck, how did that random person get into my dream? Why was I dreaming about hanging out with my second grade teacher, my cousin’s boyfriend’s sister, the guy I met at the bar last week, and my seventh grade crush? Then, it made me think…do I show up in random people’s dreams? Am I the offensive random person that makes you question just how much you were thinking about me, or how and why your subconsiousness decided to let me participate in a dream – good or bad?
Also on a more serious note, in my mid-twenties, is it normal to feel so…behind the curve? I mean, there are people that I graduated college with who are buying houses (alone!), getting married, and some are having kids. I can barely afford my rent, am still drowning in debt, and haven’t had a real decent date in 9 months (and even then decent is putting it nicely). I have friends who are managers, who have their own offices, and who genuinely love what they do. I still can’t figure out what I’m doing or if I even like it, and if I don’t like it, I still don’t know what I will do next. Does all of this mean I’m somehow on my way to being socially inept? Am I not stepping up to the plate, reaching my full potential and being aggressive enough about my future? Maybe I’m too passive in just trying to enjoy life and get by, perhaps I should be reaching and striving for something more. Maybe I’ve lost the drive, the hunger.
And, speaking of hunger…I’m on the first week of my new diet. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t going to blog about it, because I didn’t want to share with the world and open myself up to more criticism…but then I decided to be honest about it, and maybe I’ll help other people who are struggling. So, anyway, I decided to start Jenny Craig. Yes, the D-list celebrity diet featuring Kirstie Alley and Valerie Bertinelli (who? right). It’s actually not that bad, and hopefully it will give me the little boost I need to keep going on my own. It’s a pretty easy system, and although it costs a lot (about $100-$150 a week), it’s worth it to provide me with something I don’t have to think about. Basically they give you a breakfast, lunch and dinner (maybe a snack) and then you supplement your own salad, vegetables, fruits and yogurt/milk. My best friend is actually doing it with me, so that helps in that we can share our thoughts on it and actually last night we even got together to hang out and eat the food together, so we wouldn’t be tempted to go out to eat.
I did feel kind of like a loser signing up, because I think there is some stigma to going on something like this, as opposed to saying you’re doing Weight Watchers or something of the sort. It’s like admitting I couldn’t do it alone. But you know what, I couldn’t. Even though I KNOW what to eat, what to buy, what to fix…it was hard for me to get into a routine and be disciplined enough to stick to it. But now, paying for this…I don’t have to think about it, and I’m more likely to stick with it since I am paying so much for it. I don’t have to count points, to plan meals, to cook chicken and vegetables, and weigh my food. Call it the lazy person’s diet, but it works. In theory, it should help me learn to eat more (6 times a day), eat complex foods (not just eating crackers, soup, cereal and salad as most of my other “diets” have gone), and portion control. I need to be able to manage what I eat in the long run, so that I can keep the weight off that I lose, instead of gaining it back and then some. I think the tipping point for me was getting on the scale the other day, and realizing that I’m out of control. No matter what I do, the numbers are not going down, and my yo-yo dieting and weight loss and subsequent gain times two haven’t been helping the cause. I know I’m never going to be a size 2, or maybe even 4. But, I would like to get back to where I was even in 2004, which wasn’t my ideal weight then, but is certainly better than where I have ended up. I need to just find the happy medium where I feel OK, and realize that I’m never going to be perfect, and never going to be that size 2, and accept that. So, here’s to new beginnings, and let’s hope the start of something good.
