Cleaning up the Double Standard

So yesterday I cleaned for 8 hours straight. I got a lot accomplished, and I should be ready to paint very soon. Which is great! I’ve never had a really nice bedroom to sleep in. Not one that was all coordinated and stuff. I’m going to show you pictures of the half way point, but there is a disclaimer. About 4pm yesterday my vacuum cleaner bag took in a little more than it should have, and filled to the tippy top. So there is still a lot of gunk on the floor because we moved furniture around for the first time in 2 and a half years. Oh the joys of domestic life!

Here’s a nice shot with (unvacuumed) carpet showing…

See? I have been working! Now, a nice little montage of some of the interesting things I found while cleaning…

My glasses from high school…

Matt’s extensive dumbbell collection… complete with cobwebs.

*giggle* (he can never give me crap about not using my treadmill again!)

5 alarm clocks… (Charlie is REALLY NOT a morning person.)

I forgot we had this! That is fun stuff...

And of course, the keychain that says “Keys I haven’t lost yet.” Please note that the keys are missing… (man, I gotta get my bottom wolfie tooth fixed. I hate that tooth!)

Paint has been picked out and is hiding in the van at the moment, so we are going to be well on our way to our very own Clean Sweep!

In other breaking news, I got a wild hair this morning at Walmart and purchased Alli. Yeah, the stuff that gives you “treatment effects” if you eat too much fat. We will probably get a few good blog posts out of this experiment.

OK. Normally, I don’t like to address blog comments on the blog. I like to send you all a note in your email if your comment comes with one. Manic Mommy’s does not. SO we are going to talk about her comment here together. Mostly because I think it is a brilliant thing to talk about and I know we all feel it. This is what she said…

“random thing about the weight - do you sometimes feel like two people? I can't get excited about the weight I've lost because I've been here before, and it's like I'm waiting for the other-me to tap on my shoulder and say "The charade is up, you can't lose this weight, just go back to your old ways . . . ." I've been here so many times!!! All I can do is keep trudging through and hoping that if I hit a wall, this time I'll find a way to get through it (or over it, or under it - whatever it takes!).”

I feel like 2 people all the time, Manic Mommy- I think we all do. Especially those of us who have never known a “thin” life. It is so easy for us to associate WHO we are with WHAT we are. We take our bodies at face value – “because I look like this, it must mean I am that.”

So when we start finding success for the first time (or the second) (or the twentieth) we don’t allow ourselves to embrace our successes. Women feel this internal need to punish ourselves. We think that because we are a certain __________ (and please insert anything you struggle with in the blank) that we must beat ourselves up for being less than what we see other women are.

So there is the side of me that says “Whoopee! I have lost a crap ton of weight and I’m gonna keep going till I’m skinny and take a bunch of other gals with me!” Then there is the part of me that lays in bed saying “I never should have started such a public journey of my mess. I am going to let them all down when I gain everything I’ve lost back.” I do that almost every single night.

I think the problem is that we are trained from an early age to second guess ourselves. We don’t look at what is right for us, we try to put what looks right on someone else onto ourselves and make it work. Then when it goes horribly wrong (like the time I tried Atkins. But that is a blog for another day) we get frustrated and call OURSELVES the failing factor. Instead we should be taking signals from our bodies about what works and what doesn’t. We look around for answers instead of looking within.

I don’t know how to tell you we are supposed to fix this double life we live as dieters. I wish I knew so that I wouldn’t do it myself. What I can tell you is that we can “hear” the voice telling us we are going to fail, but we don’t have to LISTEN. We don’t have to believe it. We can’t ignore it, but we can say “I am going to prove you wrong on this one.”

And then we keep putting one foot in front of the other. We keep eating fruit till we are leaving Trix in the toilet, we eat Smart Ones till we burn out our microwaves- we drink water till we float away. We let Jillian Michaels shred us, and we let Richard Simmons make us disco dance till we drop.

And maybe- just maybe- one night when we are laying in bed, we will shut that voice up and get to say my 4 favorite words.

“I TOLD YOU SO.”

So keep rocking the diet, Mama. Keep on trucking. We can do it this time. I just know it.