Dee has to go to work early and wakes me at 5:30am to remind me to get JC up for school at 6:10am. I grunt my acknowledgement and tell myself that 7:15am will suffice. Dee leaves and my brain starts ticking over. I am reminded of that saying that says the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expecting things to change. I know that I have to do something different to make things change. I need to take control.
I haul myself out of bed at 6:15 and wake up JC. He is not happy to see me. Dee is the one that usually wakes him up in the morning. This is out of routine. I tell him that Dee had to go to work early as it is budget season and it will be me for the rest of the week. JC is mature enough to accept this, but I know that he doesn’t like it.
I get his lunch ready, iron his uniform and make myself a cup of tea. I then retire to the warmth of my bed until the central heating kicks in (we really need to get a timer put on our system!). I take my laptop with me because I need to watch a podcast. I have signed up for Michelle Bridges’ 12 week body transformation challenge (www.12wbt.com). I did this with some reticence. I am notoriously bad at sticking to ANYTHING, but my exhaustion is becoming unbearable to live with so after much researching, and on the back of Michelle’s success with the Biggest Loser Australia contestants, I decide to sign up for her program.
As I settle into bed, boot up my laptop, I think I should probably have utilised getting up early to do an early morning walk. One look at the weather outside and I shiver. I am not partial to the cold at all. Michelle’s face is staring up at me and I click on the podcast. “Let’s get real,” she says, “you need to ditch those excuses.” I sigh. Excuses are the mantra throughout my day.
After watching the podcast, I realise that I am late, dash into the shower, hurry JC up with his breakfast and get him off to school. I return home and think about my eating habits. They are emotionally driven, that and now habitual as well. I habitually reach for the sugary stuff instead of the healthy stuff. I am over the healthy stuff. I don’t want to believe that it satisfies me. It isn’t convenient enough for me. My excuses are numerous and plentiful. I am tempted to bake some muffins to have with a cup of tea whilst I watch the second podcast, but feel a pang of guilt. Am I not meant to be changing my habits. I opt for a cup of tea sans the muffin, but with a banana. This isn’t so bad, I think to myself.
There is a facebook group of the 12WBT in my area. I join up and immediately I am warmly welcomed and offers to go to the gym with me and walk with me are flooding in. Urgh – I abhor exercise. Lugging a 104kg frame around is hard enough without publicly humiliating myself running, or going to the gym. The irony is that I do actually have a gym membership. I have had it since January and have been the princely amount of four times. Exercise and me do not get on. But that wretched saying keeps playing over and over in my mind. To make the change, you have to change your old ways.
Dee is delighted by this outpouring of exercise love for me. “Sarah, this is a way to meet people, to not be lonely, to find that commonality with someone.” It’s only a commonality if you both enjoy it, I think, but I don’t say anything, I just smile and nod.
Of course, intellectually, I have always known that I can’t expect a change to my body shape if I don’t learn to push through the pain of moving it. However, it doesn’t matter how much I have intellectualised it in the past, my brain and my stomach have always won out in the end. In the last two years, I know that I have pretty much handed control over to whoever was prepared to take it from me. Even when the person was loathe to take it from me, I would find some way to make them take it. I did not want responsibility. I wanted to be led, like a horse around a paddock. Now, I know that it is time to take back control. My wallowing days (think pig in mud) are over, and I need more than ever to start that journey with shedding this enormous ball and chain around my neck (and stomach, bum, hips and thighs!).
So, Michelle Bridges, here I am. I have turned up on your site, handed over my money, bought the bloody gym gear, and am for all intents and purposes ready (she says whilst shutting up the voice of doubt in her mind). Let’s get this change started and see if sanity will prevail after all.
Love it Sarah and a mantra that works for me is ‘baby steps’ and ‘take one step after the other and in the end, you will get there.’
I try nowadays not to project beyond the here and now, because then things seem insurmountable, and, in many respects they are, because one is trying to go from zero to hero in minutes (in one’s head!).
Before condensing myself into fragments of moments to be lived, which I do now, I used to exhaust myself by trying to tackle the future in the present. ‘Baby steps’ work for me.
And, as my mum always says, ‘Sterkte hoer.’ You have my support and acknowledgement of how b****y hard it is!!!!