a better title when i can think of one when i'm not so jetlagged

Bali is beautiful and busy and crowded and dirty and full.  It is full.  It’s bursting at the seams.  People want to give you taksi rides. People want to say hello. People want to give you massage.  The currency has so many zeros that it’s dizzying.  It’s hard to do math.  I’ve never been good with math and coverting so I’m especially challenged here.

This is Kuta and Seminyak. 

Day 0, arrival late afternoon, we finally made it to the villa after the madness of leaving the airport and weaving through crowded streets in a car with a driver.  I don’t know how people maneuver here.  It looks like it’s almost all instinct. You don’t have any set of rules of organization or “you go now and then I go then the next person goes and we all take turns.” Which seems to be the unspoken rule of traffic in the US when faced with an intersection.   You take a turn when it feels right to you and everyone else has to adjust and somehow we have not seen anyone plowed off the road.

Delirious and sweaty from 24+ hours of travel I nursed a warm bottle of water Sadia bought me in Taipei after I drank from the water fountain and she was unsure if that was ok.

I was grateful for the water because it was leaving my body through my pores at an alarming rate.

It’s like I had stepped into a hot tub with all my clothes on and then decided to hang out in a country wide steam room. 

The air conditioning in the car was nice but in a weird way it made me sweatier. Later on I would find this happening again and again whenever my body encountered air conditioning after being out in the tropical humidity. Sweating outside made sense and felt normal. Stepping into an air conditioned store for 5 minutes would cause my body to release all moisture inside of it through my skin and sweat would pour down my face like an unstoppable waterfall.

Surprisingly enough I’m ok with being this wet all the time. I typically hate the humidity and the heat.  There is nothing that reminds you more of your girth, your size, your weight, than being hot and sticky.  I guess in America when I find myself in humidity I assume it’s just me. I’m the one suffering because of all my extra layers of chub.  The thin people don’t look as sweaty. They must certainly feel much cooler since none of their limbs seem to be touching. They have much more air flow.

Here, south of the equator, it is no mistake that no matter your size, you are all incredibly sweaty.  Even playing field.

The only people I see who are my size seem to be vacationing Australians. 

I’m ok with this.

As soon as our French air bnb host left us after giving us the lay of the land, restaurants, the tenuous taxi situation and a vague explanation of massage that she describes as jiggy-jiggly, we put on our bathing suits and I was the first one in the pool.  The water was warm and I swam back and forth risking losing a contact lense or two because it felt so good to be moving in water that I couldn’t be bothered to get my goggles.

3 planes in 24 hours with odd meal times my body was ecstatic to be swimming.

This is freedom. I am weightless and movement is full of ease and joy.

Stepping out of the pool to go to the bathroom I am reminded of gravity, of knee pain, stiff joints and my heaviness.  Knee surgery cannot come soon enough.  January 24.

I am uncomfortable with my size but I am mostly interested in where this feeling is coming from.  I tune out the obesity and diabetes and epidemic talk.  This is not new.  People have always been judgmental of fat people.  It’s normal.  Standard sized bodies are scared of catching “the fat”.  Being fat means you have no control.  It means you do not care about your health. It obviously means that you don’t exercise and spend your time eating fast food and watching too much television and not leaving your house.

Obviously.

Right.

I move so poorly outside of bodies of water.  I should just sign a pact with a sea witch and give her my human legs so I could live in the murky deep and not have to deal with real people who are scared to catch my fatness disease.

free

There is something about the music being loud. There is something about the darkness. There is something about stomping my bare feet against the thin carpet on top of solid concrete. Feeling like the ground can hold me and then some. It can meet me where I’m at no matter how hard I stomp.

There is something about moving my body in time to music. I have decent rhythm. Without too much thought I can move my legs, my limbs, my hips in time to different kinds of beats.  I could be a decent drummer.  I feel like it’s in my blood.  In a way I understand music more than I understand anything else in this world.  I understand music and melody and beat more than I understand my feelings.  My feelings which are always changing and always fleeting and something that I often do not trust.  I trust this.  I trust that the beat will always carry me and this ground will always meet me and while I cannot walk a mile without pain I can dance for an entire hour and forget I have a body.  It’s all beams of light and sweat and sometimes I cry because I feel whole and I never ever feel whole.  I never feel free. 

So this is what it’s like.  Freedom.  I wonder what I’m doing with my life that this freedom accounts for only a small fraction of my life. Days go by without it.  I forget about it. It becomes a distant dream that I’m not sure is real or not.  And then I hear a song. That song. The perfect song at the perfect moment and I remember and it makes me cry.
Because I miss it. I want more of it.  It gives me space.

#livingmybestlife

people living in bodies that society considers "standard" can be so threatened by fat people who can do whatever they can do because it can threaten their own view of their place in the hierarchy of the world.  especially those who have lost a lot of weight and continue to hustle to lose more or keep the weight off.  if you're #livingyourbestlife, then great!  i am here for you and love your love of salads and smoothies and working out.  we have some things in common!  I love working out too!  but if you're on a food and exercise plan that doesn't feel enjoyable or sustainable and doesn't always make you feel good about yourself then you are not #livingyourbestlife, you're living the most instagrammable life.  

i know because this was me.  i'm 100% guilty of this. look at me. i worked out. here are all my sweaty clothes, here are all my sweaty selfies, here are my plank and wallsit times, look at what i can do. i am so deserving of your approval.

cue up the gaga.

i've removed so many people from all my social media feeds but instagram was the most populated with #fitspo.  these images aren't for me anymore.  I'm also selective in following fat athletes because it still feeds into the part of my brain that wants to overdo it in the gym.  Last Saturday i wandered a Fred Meyer and listened to Food Psych #126: How to Reject Diet-Culture Marketing with Kaila Prins and Kaila proclaiming how she's tired of talking about bodies and seeing bodies and making everything about bodies has burned her out and she's over the whole thing.  this rang true for me. i'm on body burnout. 

there is more to human beings than their body.

i could also be burned out on this because of nanowrimo this year.  i'm analyzing my body through every stage of my life and it's maddening. I was a thin 6 year old.  and then i wasn't. who the fuck cares.

i don't have the time to film myself screaming into a coffee cup but why would i do that when this bird screaming into a cup is 1000x better.

16,000+ words into nanowrimo and i took a day off and i'm behind. BLERGH.

want

Lots of old journal entries talking about need vs. want.

Want was always the bad thing. I was always trying to talk myself out of want.

It’s only now that I realize it’s not bad to get the things you want or to let yourself have the things you want. 

Life is hard enough.  We struggle enough to just try and obtain what we need.  If we have the ability to give ourselves what we truly want, why would be say no to it?

I blame the fucking Puritans.

it all goes back to control.  

and power.

wtf world. do better.

heavy

There is something about lifting heavy.

I am heavy. I feel my weight when I’m moving through this world, I feel my belly get in the way. I go to a circuit training class and when I do a push up or need to lift myself up a box I am aware of my heaviness.  It reminds me that I am strong. No one else is carrying this weight. My quads and my glutes carry my heavy body up flights of stairs.  My traps and shoulders push me off of the ground and my core, deeply embedded somewhere under my belly fat keeps me stable in planks. It is no small feat that I can move this heavy body on my own.

Being heavy brings me advantages.

Sometimes I am immoveable. I can plant my feet and bend my knees, get down low and not be pushed over. Why was I never a football player? I will never fly away.  I am grounded. I am solid.  Women are rarely ever portrayed this way.  Women in romantic comedies are whisps of human beings. All histrionics and lots of flowing hair sending its message, letting me know that I am wrong. My body is wrong.

I can hoist a 33 lb barbell from the rack to my station. Sometimes it feels like the barbell is twice my height and it can feel awkward but I never drop it. It’s the extra extra in the workout carrying and adding the cake weights to the bar.   I wrap my fingers around the metal and step under the bar and place it on my back.  When I stand up I feel its heaviness.  It’s ok. I am heavy too.  I’ve got this.

Whether it’s sitting on my upper back or I’m foisting it up over my head I feel it’s weight and I feel my heavy and we are meeting each other in the middle acknowledging each other’s heft.

I am not conquering anything when I lift.  I am not saying, look at me, look at me.

I am just reminding myself of what I’m capable of. 

I need to replenish the well every week.  Every week, everywhere I look, I’m reminded of what I do not look like, what I cannot do, who I am not.

I will never look like that in that dress.  I am not an agile ninja in a movie. I do not walk into a bar and hold court because I am the life of the party.

Then I go to the gym to pick up something heavy, hold it over my head and tell myself,

“Yeah, you got this.”

Fuck all that other bullshit.

some little victories

i didn't know if i was going to be asked to be weighed at the ortho appt i had yesterday. 

i was and i asked if i could step on the scale backwards and she was totally ok with it and didn't say a word.

(yay! victory!)

the doctor did not comment on my weight or size at all in regards to my knee issue.

(victory)

they look pretty normal here.

doc was a white guy originally from new england and liked calling me kid.  

i am a 41 year old woman.

i didn't really think about this until i got home. it didn't bother me really though a part of me feels like maybe i should. 

with bali and jersey looming in front of me for the next 2 months, surgery had to be scheduled for january when i have real down time to concentrate on rehabbing my knee.  

on january 24th he's going to go in there with an arthroscope, clean up whatever debris is floating around and see if there is a something physically present preventing me from straightening the joint.  If not, he will pull it straight (this idea makes me faint) and i'll be in something like this for awhile:

ugh. i know.

I'll be out of commission for most of February.  no lifting. no circuit. nothing. just pt. more and more pt.

i'm trying not to think about it.

in other news, happy halloween.

it's gorgeous out. our sunny but crisp fall has been lasting longer than i remember and it is glorious.

(victory, although i did nothing to make this weather magic happen)

i drank orange juice this morning.  it was awesome.  i've been craving it. juice is something i've been wary of for years because of it's vilified sugar content.  

it's fucking juice and it's fucking delicious.

(victory)

nanowrimo starts tomorrow. i'll probably be even more radio silent here which is par for the course really.  

see you in december?

the first 99 words

Boil it all down to only the most important words, the most important parts.  Everything else is just fodder.  Everything else is just ego and explanation.  See, this is why I did it, this is what happened, it’s not my fault, really.  All of that becomes white noise.

What’s important is I am sitting here, existing in this body, this mass of blood and bone, the only thing holding everything inside, a thin layer of skin, and the heart, beating quietly in the background, each pulse telling me, “I am here. I am here. I have always been here.”

safety is an illusion

my brain melted last friday in my therapist's office when i came to realize that safety, real safety...is not real.

the critical voice, the one that i've been relying on to "keep me line" to "keep me safe" has been feeding me fear for as long as I can remember and while this voice had been helpful in the past (like ages 2-10) it has not served me as a full fledged adult who can make decisions that will not be my own demise.

i made my way home and my face was just...tired.  that feeling where every muscle in your face was exhausted from contorting in those ways they only contort when you're crying so hard you burst a blood vessel or two.

unfortunately we had the bone ball to go to that night and i just felt like an anxious ghost of a person.  i was sweaty and stressed out.  we brought both dogs and i was nervous as we've never taken them out at night to a thing with people and other dogs inside.  i chose a table against a wall and chose the most hidden seat behind a column.  i don't think i realized this until after the event that this was a clear example of my need to hide, to stay out of the way, to not been seen.

i was just mentally destroyed.

and saturday i completed the task and physically destroyed my body.  lifting went well. i hustled and pushed my limits, i'm at an 83 lb deadlift which for me is pretty good right now.  follow that up with a hard structural massage with lexi and i was down for the count.  my body had met my brain in that state of destruction. sunday i spent trying to put myself back together.

which meant baking a cake and watching television and letting everything truly rest.

jeff left for emeryville yesterday and the dogs and i typically cuddle up on the couch and i work while they nap.  

i still feel like i'm recovering. i made my strength workout monday morning and my dentist appt this morning but all i want to do is binge watch old Will and Grace, eat cake and ocassionally fall asleep.

the future is fluid

this is the future i want to live in.

the future is badass.

my badass lifting coach Alex Lannon is in this.

this is what makes me excited about the future.

the only way

it's good to have verbal diarrhea just to get the words out of me.  when they're on paper i can sort of put them away for a minute and move on to something else in my life.  i spent saturday with so many amazing people both at liberation barbell and at the yoga workshop at yoga nw.  i did all sorts of things that brought me joy.  i lifted weights. i ate a perfect avocado. i did some meditation. yoga. journaling. drawing. dancing. sweating.  i came home and jeff and i made calzones and watched project runway and i slept so hard and so deep.  everything about it felt delicious and nourishing and good.

that. i need more saturdays like that in my life.

the fact i have all these things i know i can do that make me feel good means i have a list of things to choose from if i'm not feeling so great about stuff.

two therapy sessions in and i think i knew this already but it still is surprising that it can get worse before it gets better.  all of this work is uncomfortable.  i'm eating more and i'm working at not policing myself and that is the worst of the uncomfortable feelings.  the critical voice comes out and it's so much louder than it's ever been because i'm not listening to it when it tells me that carbs are going to be the death of me.

my homework this week is to eat until i'm full. 

this.  this is what it comes down to.  eat until i'm full.

i tend to eat until i'm mostly full but not completely.  not all the time but most of the time.  i stop myself from really knowing what its like to be full and that's been fueling a lot of my food anxiety this week.  especially after strength workout days where i feel the most ravenous, like i'll never be full.  i withhold food because i feel like i should't be hungry.  

'you did all this work and you're just going to negate all of it by all of this eating.  you shouldn't be hungry. you had that protein shake and that yogurt. you had eggs already. you shouldn't need to eat again. other people have a protein bar and call it a day. why can't you?'

this is the voice. it's awful. it tells me that every decision i make when it comes to food is awful. i can't be trusted to feed myself correctly because look at me. i'm a fat slob.

this voice is so pervasive.  

another piece of homework for this week is trying to entertain this idea that this voice is not me. i keep identifying it as me because this is my brain producing these thoughts.  this is a hard one too.  

there is no way around all of this if i choose to live a more authentic way.  the only way is through.

words fail

"I guess I wanted to believe
'Cause if I just believe then I don't have to see what's really there

No, I'd rather pretend I'm something better than these broken parts
Pretend I'm something other than this mess that I am
'Cause then I don't have to look at it
And no one gets to look at it
No, no one can really see

Cause I've learned to slam on the brake
Before I even turn the key
Before I make the mistake
Before I lead with the worst of me
I never let them see the worst of me

'Cause what if everyone saw?
What if everyone knew?
Would they like what they saw?
Or would they hate it too?
Will I just keep on running away from what's true?"

-dear even hansen, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, Steven Levenson

i hate this photo of me.

i look like a tube of a person, one uniform large shape with no defined curves.

i think about how this could be alleviated if i had my boobs back.

i had breast reduction surgery in 2013 and for the most part i don't regret it.  i can't imagine anyone who has lived with a set of 36Gs regretting it.

sure i had cheyenne gil take awesome photos of me and it helped me really see what i look like but everyday iphone selfies i see what i look like and i still cannot feel any compassion towards myself. 

sure you have biceps but they're buried in your fat.

the double chin is back in effect.

good luck fitting into half the winter clothes you wore last year.

i am no holds barred a super mean girl.  to myself. it's uncomfortable. it's so familiar to be this cruel to myself but it's awful because...

i really don't want to be mean to myself for the rest of my life.

i got into it online with an old college friend and a part of me feels like i really should have just let it be and not have engaged with him about weight being an indicator of health.  it just really stirred up everything i've been going through recently and i'm completely over this idea that your weight dictates your health.  i wanted to use myself as an example and i put it all out there, my past weights, my struggles to attain "not obese" status when i was working out more than anyone else i knew. all this past behavior that i have very conflicting emotions about. i'm not proud of the fact that i was pushing myself as much as i was. everyone else was. i wasn't.

but hey, health - right?

he didn't get it and i really wished he took a moment to really look at this information and say "hey, maybe there is something to this health at every size thing." 

but he didn't.

and i put the kibosh on it because it's probably not best to get into an argument online with a lawyer who thinks that celebrating body diversity is glorifying something unhealthy.

he's not a bad guy.  he's actually a really great guy that i remember having really awesome conversations with in college. i just think this "radical" idea that we're going about the whole "war on obesity" in a harmful damaging way is too outside of the box for a lot of people.

americans. we really love asking people to shape up or ship out. 

the world is not a compassionate or understanding place for larger bodied people. for fat people. whatever term you want to use (since so many people still have a stigma about the word fat). 

the larger you are the higher expectation there is to perform healthy behaviors to prove to people you are worthy.  the more pressure you may put on yourself to perform "health" just so you can be accepted.

the fact that people push back against body diversity or seeing different sized bodies must mean something right? why does this make you uncomfortable? 

can you stop screaming "health! health! health!" long enough to ask yourself why this bugs you so much?

having a body that everyone else wants to have a say about is hard. 

with so much of this outside stuff coming at me attacking me i really need to figure out why i say the same cruel things to myself.  why does being kind to myself make me so uncomfortable?  why do i feel so unworthy?

after taking time off from the gym that first trip back is haaaard.  i did not want to get up this morning. the fact it was pitch black out when my alarm went off didn't help. the fact that i spent a good chunk of my monday knee deep in emotions about all of this crap didn't help. i had a hard time turning my brain off last night so it was no surprise that i did not want to get up.

i needed to get up though. i needed to move. my knees needed it.  on the cold rainy walk to the bus stop i gave myself permission to suck in class. it worked.  i went. i felt good about it. i'm not the only one who hates burpees and that always makes me feel better when  i hear the collective groan of everyone when they see it on the white board.

i'm still obsessive about my scheduling of workouts though. i book and cancel then re-book classes at lightening speed.  my need to have a schedule for myself when it comes to exercise is borderline ocd right now.  everything shifted since i cancelled monday so i went today but that means i need to cancel wednesday metcon which is fine but i should do something so hot yoga is a good replacement, right? i'll do that but then will i want to go to yoga thursday night?  should i book it to make it solid so i'll actually go? but then friday morning is core and mobility at the ass crack of dawn, will i be able to get up early if i yoga thursday night?  then i have powerlifting saturday, will i be recovered enough from friday to make saturday not suck so much?

this takes up entirely too much space in my brain. it's slightly better than yesterday's sadness. i cried a lot yesterday. everything kept spilling out of me and i couldn't stop. 

i have acupuncture today.  there must be a meridian for sadness right? 

the difference between letting go and giving up

i've been free falling.

sometime at the beginning of this year i decided i didn't want to be on the hamster wheel anymore. 

maybe there was a tiny part of my brain that wanted to get back on, wanted the structure of an eating and exercise plan, the comfort of the familiar regiment. wash. rinse. repeat.  it's easy.  it keeps me in check. it keeps me in line.

in check for what?

in line for whom?

i didn't go back on a plan though. i kept eating what i wanted and napping on the hamster wheel because i was just...done. 

"hey!  hey! if you're done with that can you get off? i need to get my cardio in!"

eating felt like a buffet of my most favorite things with a double helping of shame and guilt. 

my workouts suffered.  i stopped going because i was conflicted. i felt like i was moving my body because i hated myself not because it felt good. 

   THIS. IS. A. LIE.                                                                

i regretted some workouts. i felt shitty about myself afterwards because i felt slow and ridiculous. my body hurt. i was listening to the voice in my head that tells me i'm a shitty person because i eat shitty food and that's why i move so shitty in the gym. 

something that used to bring me so much joy was taken away from me. i love my gym.  it feels like home most days except earlier this year where it felt like failure and disgust. i stopped going for awhile, maybe a month?  i don't really remember.  it's like i don't want to remember january to may because it was too depressing. 

during this time i would often hold my belly in both of my hands and imagine how much better everything would be if this didn't exist.  i thought about how much better everything would be if i was just someone else altogether. 

it was too much. i was too much. i felt like i had lost myself. for most of my adult life my identity had been tied to fitness and heath.  people really like you when you're going to the gym, then spin class, then posting recipes of your keto/paleo/salad/lowcarb/sugarfree bullshit online. it feels good to be liked and respected. no one was going to like or respect me for my body but they'll like and respect me because i demonstrate the "right" behavior for someone who looks like me.  

someone "healthy".

3.5 mile run + 90 minute soulcycle class =  Me: "I'm going to fall asleep in the tub."
Sadia Harper: "Please don't die."

i hated this person that people thought i was. i felt like an imposter. i was doing all the "right" things but it was never enough and i'm pretty sure i knew it wasn't enough. that i'd never be ok with myself no matter what i looked like. 

doing all this in the name of "health" made me feel ok about this behavior though.  

i had decided i needed a new doctor as my last one couldn't remember who i was much less remember what i came in for last year when i needed a cortisone shot for my left knee.

i didn't bother finding one right away because i wasn't ready to be told to lose weight...again. i perused therapists online but didn't make any effort to book an appointment because i wasn't really ready to deal with whatever it was that was causing this free fall.  

i was hoping it would sort itself out and i'd eventually get back onto the hamster wheel.

because that's what happens right?  your problems fix themselves when you go back to that sugar-free life and you can do cardio again at the gym without feeling like death.

i wanted to crawl inside of a huge delicious sandwich to die.

i gave up.

i sat in this mess of "give-up" for awhile.  i mediated and i felt better briefly. i went to yoga and i felt better briefly.  i threw myself into work and i could ignore it for a couple of hours. i talked to my husband about it and felt bad and stupid and embarrassed about it because i was crying about food and my inability to control it.

i cuddled with my dog because sometimes that's the only thing that feels genuine, real and good.

charlie pancakes whispers sweet everythings into my ear.

i feel like i had to come out of this funk to deal with life once summer hit and the busy-ness of summer was upon us.  we traveled and saw friends and family. friends and family traveled and came to stay with us.  i shoved aside a lot of these feelings into the back of my brain because i couldn't deal with them AND life stuffs at the same time.

this felt ok most of the time. i still had no idea what i was going to do about any of it.  the plan was to keep free falling and eating whatever, whenever, in whatever quantities i wanted. i tested the waters with working out again and it started to feel good again after i decided i needed movement more than i needed to excel at everything thrown at me at circuit class. i did the bare minimum in class. i didn't push it to my limit. i often felt lame for not doing everything with gusto but i told that part of my brain to shut up because something felt better than nothing.

this summer i told that part of my brain to stfu every day so i could try and do normal life things and it worked.

i had pushed so much of this stuff to the back of my brain that it was easy to forget i had signed up for this retreat/workshop at be nourished. i had read every page of their website and listened to hilary and dana on podcasts but really had no idea what i would be stepping into when i got to the little house on n. williams across the street from the tastiest little chocolate potato doughnuts at tasty n' sons (i think about this doughnut hole more than i should).

after friday evening i knew it was going to be a tough weekend for an empathic person like me.  i cried often and quietly because i didn't want to be loud about anything while people shared.

i had forgotten so much of my childhood that it was surprising to realize how early a lot of this started. food was at the center of everything growing up.  i just got back from a family wedding and realized it still is.  we buy and surround ourselves with so much food like there's a great famine coming and this wall of burgers will protect us from everything. 

replace society with family and that also works.

a lot of memories came flooding back to me, reminding me this hasn't just been this year that has been a struggle, it's been my entire life.  

it's now clear why i need as many naps as i take/want each week.

i'm fucking tired. 

this year is the year it has hit me that i don't want to waste any more time on feeling bad about myself. 

i don't want to be praised for being "good" because i go to the gym or don't eat bread.  

being praised in a national magazine for losing weight fueled my exercise addiction and orthorexia.

not when i'm paying for it with knee surgery, copious amounts of physical therapy and complete distrust of my body and it's ability to feed and take care of itself.

this doesn't mean i've stopped wanting to lose weight. this doesn't mean that i'm ok with my body and how it looks and moves.  i still want these things. i still want some relief from the voice that tells me i'm a horrible human being for not working out or eating kale. i don't necessarily believe this voice will ever go away. i don't know if i'll ever stop wanting to be thin.

but i do know that what i've been doing for my entire life hasn't worked so i need to stop doing that. 

i'm letting go of all the crap i've gone through to get to this point because i know there's a better way. there is a way to exist in this body as it is right now and not -30 lbs from now that doesn't feel like hell.  there is a way to navigate food that doesn't make me lose my mind counting macros or lose my mind bingeing. there is a way to not hate my body on days when i can't love it. 

everything is a process isn't it?

there is no thin person inside of me wanting to get out Oprah. there has never been a thin person living inside of me who is a better version of me.  there's only been me, in this body, in this container for my guts, trying to figure shit out in a world that is doing everything in its power to make me want to be someone else.

i don't know what happens now. ever since the retreat i've been slowing down trying to navigate food choices that feel good and not "correct" in the lens of healthism. i've been eating and feeling less guilt about what i've consumed.  i haven't flipped any particular switch in my brain and all of a sudden food is shame-free.  i think i have a deeper understanding that has come to light during the retreat that none of this is my fault and that's made it easier to let go of the guilt. 

we were all sold this idea that there is only one "correct" way to look.  belonging and love and acceptance only goes to those who fit into this ideal. everyone else take a backseat because we don't give two shits about you.  you don't deserve nice clothes or decent space in airplanes. you don't deserve time or attention unless it's to mock you or ridicule you for what you eat and especially for what you look like (ahem: dani mathers, diana andrews). 

anger was really the biggest emotion i walked away with from last weekend.  it's odd since anger really isn't in my regular vocabulary of emotions.  i steer clear of it because it's uncomfortable, scary and aggressive but it was the realest thing i felt on that last day of the retreat.  angry that i've been made to feel like a complete failure because i did all the right things and it didn't work. i didn't win. i don't get pass go and collect $200. i get to stay on the hamster wheel until i'm thin enough to be accepted by a society that doesn't care what i'm doing to be "healthy" (which isn't healthy in the slightest)  just that i stay "healthy" because it is my moral obligation to be "healthy" and anything less means i'm slovenly, lazy and bad.

i think anger is probably what i needed though since anger motivates me to change, pushes my kapha self to do something.

that something is opening myself up to a different way of living that's rooted in self-love and self-care.

the first tangible real step in this direction?

my first therapy appointment is this Friday.

BALI

I'm at a loss for words when I think about this upcoming trip to Bali. Miranda, Sadia and I confirmed our locations and reservations and we're splitting our time between:

Ubud:

photo from our airbnb rental #1

and Kuta/Seminyak.

airbnb rental #2 

I keep thinking, in typical white girl fashion we're going to yoga and write in our journals and what not but it dawned on me that all three of us are not white.

i'm still working through some shit that came up during the Be Nourished Workshop I just finished.  It's both parts relief and a mixture of anger/sadness. i'm giving myself space and not putting pressure on myself to write about it or feel the need to talk too much about it to people outside of the other workshop participants which feels good.  

In the meantime I'm in a small town called Winters in California for my cousin's wedding. While I'm never completely prepared to handle the onslaught of family and food and all the emotions that go with it it's ok, I'm mildly prepared which is enough. For now.

Carbs

Today in 'Carbs are not the Enemy' we have pasta and ice cream.  

i think this was the most successful pasta dish i've made since bringing carbs back into my life after years of being deathly afraid of them.

who knew scrambled eggs and butter would make an amazing sauce?  well, the folks at Hugo's in LA knew. i had this dish a lifetime ago when I lived there and well, it stuck with me. 

those are field roast sausages.  i keep toying with the idea of going back to being a vegetarian. it's hard to know what my body wants these days while i'm learning to trust that it knows what it wants and i don't have to police it. 

i bused it this morning downtown to an OTATPDX (a portland dog rescue volunteer/foster with) training meeting. i rarely find myself downtown and par for the course i thought about places in the area that i want to eat at since i'm never there.  the pine street market which i've only been to once was about 7 blocks away and i made my way there afterwards for a slice of pizza and some soft serve from wiz bang bar.  i walked the remaining 4 blocks to the bus stop happily eating my cookies and cream blizzard and for a split second i found myself not thinking about how horrible the sugar i was consuming was for me.

the fact i can turn off that voice for a split second is progress.

i had lunch with sue on saturday in which i confessed that i knew i had a problem right after coming out of my knee surgery i woke up from anesthesia faced with a packet of graham crackers and apple juice and a nurse telling me to eat.

my first thought was, 'i'm on the whole 30 diet. i can't.'

i knew i was being dumb. i ate the crackers and drank the juice.

but i did sit there feeling like i was failing at life because i couldn't stick to a diet.

i was so mired in this idea of being 'healthy' and that meant doing things like the whole 30 or being paleo or not consuming processed anything.

i was so lost in this that i couldn't really see that 'health' was being marketed to me.

and i bought it.

to my own detriment.

navigating this shit is hard as fuck. know that you're not alone in figuring this shit out.

right now, the mantra is: carbs are not the enemy.

a different perspective

sometimes it takes seeing yourself through someone else's lens to realize you are beautiful.

photo credit: Cheyenne Gil

i hate how it's so hard to get to this place though. at what point along the way did i tell myself i wasn't? 

boring self care

no one else will do it for me.

had my last beginners weightlifting class today which made me sad but liberation barbell should be opening soon which makes me happy. 

i can't wait to lift all the heavy things!

in the meantime, welcome to my world of boring self care which includes cake, binge watching glow on netflix and basement naps when the heat gets too much.

this. this is how i love you.

 i've stopped meditating. i've stopped writing.

i started lifting heavier at circuit training and started eating carbs again. 

friends have come and gone and come again and gone again.  houseguests are fun. they fill your time with interesting conversations and good food and books and adventures.

my parents came to visit for my birthday and portland decided to give them the most amazing weather before turning into satan's butthole. (approx 111 degrees)

i learned that i'm still at the mercy of my knee and that my footwear matters more than ever or my PT will have none of my complaining about pain.

this.  this is my future folks.  the future is very beige and has great arch support.

i took time off. i got a sunburn in orange county and swam to my little heart's content. i saw old friends. i went to la.  i saw malcy.  i'm the last person he knows who still calls him that.  he's letting me keep that one thing. i saw my old neighborhood.  hollywood is weird and different. it almost feels like la never happened to me, that life feels so far away. how did i do it? i don't remember this person who used to work on sunset blvd and live in the hotel california with the broken elevator that always had dog pee in it. 

i just remember baggy raver clothing, bad attempts at bleaching my own hair and keeping shared cartons of cigarettes in the freezer.

there wasn't much social media back then and i was using a landline so the awkward raver days (not to be confused with the awkward heavy metal days) go mostly undocumented.

which is the best for everyone really.

i went back to work and lost myself in it trying to catch up. there were a couple of yoga classes, some strength circuits  and one rogue spin class that made me realize how much i am no longer a cardio person.

i used to be solely a cardio person.

who are all these weird foreign people i used to be?

maybe i'll be a cardio person again later in life.  maybe not. maybe ufo skirts and jenko jeans will come back into fashion and i'll start writing crazy essays about the spiritualness of house music again. 

maybe not.

this. i lived in a black version of this skirt. this was my past. my horrible reflector tape and cargo pocket past.

i've been spending most of my days in some form of bathing suit since the weather has turned into something akin to the inside of a microwaved hot pocket.  we bought a kiddie pool and filled it with water for afternoon cold soaks in an attempt to feel normal.  (nothing feels normal.)

i am surprisingly ok hanging out in my bikini.

i am more disturbed by how much i dislike the word bikini and how white my belly is. 

next week the hotpocalypse continues and jeff heads to the bay area leaving me alone with the dogs to bake in this weather. i imagine the dogs and i will continue to set up camp in the cool-ish basement and i can shame watch reality television, read manga and eat poke bowls for every meal.

these weirdos don't judge. except charlie. he still rolls his eyes when i try to watch the bachelorette.

i wrote about my recent photo shoot with cheyenne gil and how august is the anniversary of my prevention magazine article.  I couldn't stop thinking about how much noise and praise people lavish upon you when you lose weight. They openly admire your dedication and your discipline to fitness and diet. They congratulate you for making what they consider are good decisions. All the while having no idea how badly you need to eat a sandwich and take a nap.

this person i remember more clearly.  this person is still fresh in my brain. she's not buried somewhere deep like jersey or hollywood.  she's still hanging around saying things like "you remember me because you want to be me again, right? people loved me because i was so good at going to the gym. people wanted to know me and write about me because i stopped being fat for a hot second. why wouldn't you want to be me again? it's really easy."

she's right.  it's really easy.

it's harder to really know what i need to do to take care of myself.  it's harder to cancel a workout than it is to go to the gym when i know my body hasn't recovered yet from the last one. it's harder to be soft. to be gentle with myself. 

photo credit: the oh so lovely cheyenne gil

it's really easy to look at yourself and list all the things you hate about yourself.

it's harder to say this is how i love you, this is how i love you, let me count the ways.

bean

bean is gentle and kind and kinda shy.

bean gets nervous if you come at him a little too fast.

bean probably has some horrible past abuse but we can't know for sure but he does cower if he doesn't know you and you try to pet him. 

bean wouldn't walk out the front door when we tried to take him for his first walk. he didn't understand why anyone would want to leave the house. he was awkward on the leash and would either walk behind you or take 2-3 steps ahead of you then look back as if asking, 'am i doing it right? is this ok?'

bean follows me throughout the house and sits at my feet under the dining room table when i work. the only time he doesn't follow me is when i turn on the shower.

bean barks at times but usually because charlie starts it.

the click of putting on his collar or his harness used to make bean run away in fear.

bean is better though. we've had him for 4 weeks. he's been to 2 adoption events. he was supposed to go to another one this upcoming sunday but my brain sort of broke this morning.

i found myself cuddling bean and sobbing. i had imagined our household without him and it physically hurt.

his adoption counselor contacted me and i told her i wanted to adopt bean.

bean will never know that we put a ring on it. he probably assumed we did 4 weeks ago. that's ok though.  

busy

that's no excuse but there have indeed been many distractions in the past month.

the return of OITNB.

like falling in love with bean, our foster dog.

laying around in new bathing suits waiting for a streak of hot enough weather to frolic.

Eating carbs.

i sorta want to get the diagram of the biscuit belly popping out of the can tattooed on my forearm.

cutting all my hair off.

i often forget i have this tattoo.

there's work. new projects abound. 

there's PT. i'm back in physical therapy for my knee because i just don't want to live my life in 1 mile increments. the new ritual is doing my PT exercises on the daily while watching episodes of American Ninja Warrior.  

don't ask. i don't know why.

there's finding myself back to an almost regular workout schedule which includes no longer includes self loathing if i do not stick to the schedule.

there's no longer feeling like a failure because i've lost some gains and am not lifting as heavy as i used to.

there's no longer feeling like being the slowest, gimpiest, limpiest person is a bad thing.

it's a no thing.

because no one cares how slow i am. so i shouldn't care.

there is still this underlying fluttering feeling of anxiety when faced with a food decision. the conversations i need to have with myself on what to eat are ridiculous.  removing the weight and meaning i've given to certain foods seems to take forever to recover from. i have to stop myself from labeling things as good and bad.  it's all just food.

that's taking more work than anything else really.

i've been filling my days with life stuffs which include long bouts of nothing, napping and listening to podcasts. once in awhile i'll feel like maybe i'm missing out on something exciting that might be happening outside my front door but that one is much easier to let go of. i'm good at that part of self care. the part that includes blankets and sleeping puppies and hibernation.

in other news, i'm going to bali in november.

ubud here i come.