It’s Monday, the day of the Moon, and
therefore the most appropriate for Moon’s (that’s me) road to
success. Not only has the scale confirmed my feelings, but it also
managed to get a holy sh[ark] from me, because I didn’t
expect that figure. Not yet, anyway…
As I’ve promised, I’ll start talking about the rules and the general method.
As I’ve promised, I’ll start talking about the rules and the general method.
I’ll start with a couple of introductory
questions, to avoid the Scientology effect, in which I spit out
golden rules fallen from an alien sky: where did I get them from? And do they always work?
I can’t remember how, but among my mails I
found one from a site called DDC. If I reveal what the acronym means
I start laughing, because it’s a tragically ridiculous name. I’ve
always thought so and I don’t deny that this is possibly one of the
reasons why I didn’t take it seriously the first time.
I really tried to follow the rules it proposed, because they made sense, and they didn’t require pills, circus contortionist exercises, rigour, or an impossible grocery list. They were rules that demanded we dig into the self, in the mind, that promised to help us change our relationship with ourselves and, as a consequence, with food.
I followed them for a week with surgical precision, without believing in it. I thought that after all application would suffice, like in every other thing I do and automatically do well. In fact, I did lose some weight. But I couldn’t get into the right frame of mind, because reading the comments from other people in the course felt like being in a support group for fat-ass losers (a bunch of other Mes, basically).
I really tried to follow the rules it proposed, because they made sense, and they didn’t require pills, circus contortionist exercises, rigour, or an impossible grocery list. They were rules that demanded we dig into the self, in the mind, that promised to help us change our relationship with ourselves and, as a consequence, with food.
I followed them for a week with surgical precision, without believing in it. I thought that after all application would suffice, like in every other thing I do and automatically do well. In fact, I did lose some weight. But I couldn’t get into the right frame of mind, because reading the comments from other people in the course felt like being in a support group for fat-ass losers (a bunch of other Mes, basically).
The last straw was the incursion of an
acquaintance in my magical virtual world: browsing the internet
together he accidentally stumbled upon my e-mail page, and the stupid
name above made him crack with laughter, humiliating me beyond words.
Moon the Tortoise pulled her head back into her shell and told herself it was all bullshit. End of the line.
Moon went on, with highs and lows, and always overweight, as usual.
This was one year ago.
For weight related and introspective reasons only known to me, my state of mind changed. I had become a desert that craved a solution like raindrops. As it happens, an e-mail announcing a reprise of the above course appeared, and I went back to the site in question.
The language was always the same, sprinkled with bad grammar and worse syntax, but I decided to overlook it.
Moon the Tortoise pulled her head back into her shell and told herself it was all bullshit. End of the line.
Moon went on, with highs and lows, and always overweight, as usual.
This was one year ago.
For weight related and introspective reasons only known to me, my state of mind changed. I had become a desert that craved a solution like raindrops. As it happens, an e-mail announcing a reprise of the above course appeared, and I went back to the site in question.
The language was always the same, sprinkled with bad grammar and worse syntax, but I decided to overlook it.
Even before getting to the rules, it’s vital to understand that human beings, barring few isolated cases, follow given mental and physical mechanics, many of which have developed in ancient times to preserve the species, although today they’re more damaging than anything.
For example, swallowing less food than required by the body sets the brain on DEFCON 1, slowing down the metabolism expecting hardship. Strict diets therefore lead to burning less calories.
As for grey matter, we directly go to red alert, because in some ways we humans are utter disasters, true professionals at self-sabotage.
I come from a long list of diets, exercises and frustrations, alternating with spans of mental serenity, (unsurprisingly corresponding to the times where I lost a few pounds because I wasn’t fretting over weight at all).
Therefore, reading a website full of
exceptional testimonies of weight loss wasn’t all that persuasive
to me, used to ads promising miracles through mystical berries, 20
seconds exercise a month and demonic foods to avoid like the plague
to lose years of nosh-up in a week. Yeah, sure. I don’t believe in
anything any more, including miraculous before-and-after pictures,
often (badly) hiding an awful lot of Photoshop, when not simply
inverted pictures of once thin girls now grown fat.
I thought it was my fault nothing worked. Congenital bad luck, slow metabolism, a great cook as a mother, poor willpower and adverse stars. Even when a regime seemed to work, it always ended with me getting relaxed and starting to rise like dough again.
Even worse, when I stopped resisting the restrictions and the nine-tailed demon of Hunger unleashed his fury, it sucked up every crumble for miles around. I think many can relate to my experiences, maybe made worse by age or personal problems which (at the moment) are not tormenting me.
Two weeks ago I started again with a clean slate. I decided that the past failures are, indeed, past, and they mustn’t influence my present. White page, like I wrote at the beginning. I started to reread the first rules, the only one I got to read before I gave up, and started to apply them again, one by one, adding new ones every 3-4 days not to accumulate too many, to give myself time to get used to them.
As soon as I manage to get a couple hours for myself, I’ll continue: I hate walls of text.
Signature updated, and thank a lot, myself!
*(weights are expressed in Kg)
