And today, after a week of crazy walking, I am ready to jump into a second phase of this dieting. perhaps.

I find the thought of smaller so always foreign, so strangely inappropriate. Yet the curiosity exists, and somehow still I am at a point of resistance. There sometimes appear to be hurdles that are so thickly about the familiarity of identity, the reticence to press a little on the identity.

The stopping point was April, last year, right around this weight, and maybe it was only to give a friend the time to acclimate, to find this weight feasible for her, to limit her proclivity to worry. But to stay a year, here, to have little difficulty managing a different weight range, it suggests the possibility of exploring further, and so, on this, the anniversary of this space, I’m finding myself in a declaration of intentions.

An impetus to exercise, to embrace too many vegetables…
spring turning.

at six months of maintaining a weight I couldn’t imagine, I realize repeatedly the strange habits of attention to weight.

some of that repetition comes because one of the instruments has been pulled out of the normal repetitions. The scales broke in June? After five years of daily repetitions, without a thought. A quick on and off routine. But now, with new scales, I stand on them, try them again, just to see if they’re accurate, and the new scales move between numbers too easily, and I’m not willing to take an average each morning, not willing to try and guess whether I’m up or down a pound. I take a 10 pound weight, weigh it. One reading, it’s 9 pounds, the next it’s 9.4, the next 9, the next 9, the next 9.8. It takes the 10 pound weight for me to give permission to myself to buy another scales.

Online I read that perhaps digital scales are designed to give a repeated weight so as not to be deemed inaccurate, and I laugh, realizing that part of my ritual requires the steady weight. Clicking the order button for a new scales, one that I know will have this feature, the desire is not so much for accuracy, but for a steady weight that allows this part of my daily ritual to become less conscious.

It weighs so much, that I tell a friend about it, confess that in my adult life, knowing that my ability to see my body is limited, that I keep a scales, have kept a scales for maybe twenty years, weighing as a way of gauging what I might eat in a day. Having read, long ago, about how the perception of body can shift often within a short amount of time, understanding that I see my body differently day to day, its size, its shape, never assuming an accurate read, these digital scales function as a sort of daily stabilizing framing. On in the morning, early, a sort of sorting out the day, a starting point, and then on to other issues, to other concerns, without so much as a backwards glance. This strategy of the scales is one of desiring not to dwell. That seems a counter-intuitive framing, that a daily attention to weight would signify obsession, but it keeps, at bay, worry over weight.

all to say, a second scales is on its way, and this has something to do with coming to almost a year of being in some different relation to diet and exercise. The summer a year ago, biking and walking a dog, and coming to October, and trying to decide on a future, and then deciding to exercise and attempt a lower weight. That decision, that kind of curiosity, I still find curious, something of this middle age wondering. And a year later, at a weight that still causes me to take a double take, to try and understand this relation to body and size. That I had a narrative of a particular possible range of sizes, that I established that narrative in my twenties, that in my forties, I think, maybe not. That I sit, on any given day, for six months, at a steady weight that is beyond anything I ever thought I could weigh. It’s not the weight that interests me so much as the sense of what is possible. It’s of the same scope as the onions. A year ago, if someone had said, you’ll eat onions soon, I would have laughed. A narrative longer than I can remember of hating onions, and then a show, and listening often to people trying to sort out flavor/smell phobias, and slowly finding a way to open up the imaginary to the possibility of onions. Such a strange mind game attending here.

I realize, in that way of avoiding, that I have this desire to lower the weight further, but the scales play an integral role in that game/dance and so, whether there’s money or not for scales, they’re coming. A luxury, it feels, because these scales that range too widely will find their way to good will. or the trash can or somewhere other than here.

And with the scales arriving, I realize that I’ve stood on this edge, again, trying to reach a goal of going down the scales maybe ten pounds, and there, waiting, on this edge, not sure if I can manage what that means intellectually, to be thin. And just staying here long enough to decide whether curiosity will win out. I remember when Marcus made this journey down the scales, how he became too thin for a while, and how much I like his look with just a few more pounds. But it’s October, and I’m looking at a year’s anniversary of making a conscious choice to work at something that would be difficult to accomplish, and then finding that it wasn’t actually that difficult, that there was something of pleasure, and so reminding myself that this work isn’t going to be difficult, that there’s a pleasure in increasing the exercise, and a pleasure in knowing that the vegetables will play an even larger role again.

when the weights come, I begin in earnest.

In this summer of many trips and eating out, and trying to figure a future, I was surprised by how I would think I was gaining weight, how acclimated I am to this size now, and how much I figure if I put on a couple pounds, that I’ll be back in the other clothes. So that to literally try them on again, to know that no matter what I do, I cannot keep these shorts hoisted, that I haven’t in fact gained back twenty pounds, that conundrum of not understanding size and shape remains.

and while I have stopped tracking food, and while I think, often, that I should pay more attention, the strange work happens in realizing that most of my food choices are predominantly vegetables with very little fat added.

I had this intention, I realize, of dropping ten more pounds, and I probably will, but it has been useful to understand the range of what I can eat, when out with others, the range of what’s possible. As long as that balance is weighted heavily towards vegies, most things are feasible…that’s interesting knowledge. and so next year, next year, I say, there will be more home grown vegies. maybe.

In seven days, I’ll be sitting on a bike for a week.

and something about this trip.

I love, absolutely, the decision to just rethink the conclusion that carpal tunnel issues prohibited biking.

the idea that one might revisit assumptions, take a different interpretation, rethink, without mourning the time it takes to come to that revision.

there’s something so extraordinary about having the possibility of a week on a bike, without it being a race to the finish.  and something about trying it without as much weight.  Yesterday, looking at the site for the trip, and then linking to a page of images from last year, and there we are, on our bikes, and I think about what it would mean to just hoist 40 pounds on my back, and then hop on the bike and go up and down hills, sucking wind.

And of course, the decision to bike is a tie in to memories from the time when Greg and I were given bikes at the same time, so that to learn how to ride with this older brother meant somehow something about continuing to keep up with him.  Three years younger, he must have been pretty old for a bike, and maybe he already had one, and this was the point at which I learned, but for me, a first memory, and a first scar, is that image of that brick retaining wall coming up much too quickly, and of course, biking barefoot.  Somehow this point of pride.  And the bicycle such a sign of  being able to put quick distance between the house and play.  To bike, then, is to mark these very early relations to exercise, to the kinds of introductions to movement.  what is it to revisit the delight of bikes from childhood throughout a lifetime?

This moment yesterday of realizing that I’m ready for this trip, that I know what ready feels like, and that once ready, I start to relax into the idea of just taking our time.  that there will be time this year to slow down and take pics.  This memory of a man, last year, towards the end of the trip, clearly struggling, in the morning, saying, how hard it was, and I know exactly what he’s describing, and also feel this incredible comfort in at least knowing what I need to do to get ready.

in this early morning, pre-clean up, house in disarray, won’t tolerate it any longer, moment.

I slip into the sounds of Butch, moving his body in a full fledged run, barking at something in his dreams, to the sound of cars, almost a mile away heading off to a day’s labor, to the frogs, so thickly present this spring, reminding me of the first spring in this house with as much rain water as we’ve experienced this year, when I thought the frogs were baby birds, and couldn’t imagine where they all were living.

the weight moves up and down with this biking exercise, an unpredictable movement, and I don’t know whether to eat more or less, to exercise more or less, worried, as I am, each year, about whether I’ve prepared enough for a long ride.  I finally experience the three hour training as feasible, which makes the thought of five hour consecutive days not so daunting, but also eating differently to find more energy to go faster, to…

I think I need nutrition knowledge.

What I like, thinking of frogs and knowledge, is that the landscape has changed so much from that first year, that nothing really needs to be done.  several things can be done, and it would be okay, but if it doesn’t happen, the land no longer bothers me, no longer makes me think, shit, I need to take care of this or that thing.  Instead, I’m working out a plan for weeding, for mowing, for managing, and it seems feasible.  and five years ago, moving this bicycle to this new place, thinking that biking was impossible, thinking so much about being done with the clay within a year of arriving here, and then finding a way to the biking, to the clay, to the yard working.  it seems like a lot of ideas coming together.

Working this week on a little article which is really not interesting, but thinking that it allows me to take a slightly different approach to aging research, and that approach matters, that it’s hopeful in a way that wraps together the ideas and moves them forward.  and somehow this is about figuring out weight, figuring out biking, figuring out landscaping, figuring out a dog instead of a cat.  I want to say it’s some sort of full circle, slowly forming.  Maybe.

I remain curious about weight loss in terms of programs like Weight Watchers, in terms of how they influence behavior.

so that the last 2-3 pounds have been impossible to actually imagine losing, and so yesterday, i switched the goal weight down 5 more pounds, so that it says I have 7 – 8 pounds to lose, and suddenly, I switch into girl with a goal behavior which is curious and strange and weird and more than I want to understand, save that increasingly, I want to understand how motivation sits, individually.  What makes me want to return to diet mode when the number says I need to drop 7?  instead of 2?  What makes Ellen speed up when she sees the finish line, and that same finish line makes me think, ah, I’ve finished this, and I slow down?

How much of learned behavior around goal lines, around finish lines is learned, and where, and what does it mean to just play into the way a brain processes information, and what does it mean to counter the narratives that the brain has?

These questions on a sunday morning, when the dog wants to go for a walk, and I need to sit still for hours, working on a paper that I don’t really think is that interesting to write. <sigh>

I realize this morning that when I look in the mirror, the change is not enough for me to say, this is a radical alteration.

Something very quickly acclimates to the idea of this or that size, this or that pant size, this or that way of moving.

Though the obvious things:  living without forty pounds is rather an extraordinary difference, if I pick up forty pounds and think about it literally.

There is the way the heat doesn’t feel as hot, that is already experienced, and we’re not remotely into summer.

I bought four tank tops for working outside, or riding the bike, and I’m amazed at how small they look, and yesterday, sorting through clothes, the usual spring cleaning where a bag of clothes finds its way to goodwill, that inevitable labor, I found that additional clothes found their way into the large pile of clothes I cannot yet give away, can no longer wear.  This pile, I’ve promised myself, can stay a year as I have some attachment to the memories associated with this or that garment, and want to remember just a while longer.

but like the pottery that has rested in the closet for too long, and is soon to be gone, I find that the clothes will soon enough sort themselves out.

In part, the realization about weight, about how it works, about what I thought I knew, in part the realization will have to remain, and with it the knowledge that different weights are rather easy for me to find.  and find again.

I think, with the purchase of these tank tops, with that sort of stunned look at their size, there’s something like the acclimation to this size, and with it, increasingly, a feeling comfortable in this skin, this size.

a day after a day after a day after

in the early morning, watching my dog slowly wake up, make his trannsition, he looks up from his reality, vaguely stunned by morning.  we share this stunned look most mornings.

I don’t actually encounter the mirror as indicating a body much different from the body I started this journey experiencing.  I think about whether I’ll acquire a weight again, thirty or forty pounds heavier, and what it would feel like to put the weight back on, and it seems unlikely, from this vantage point.  The habit of setting a weight range, of keeping that weight range, that seems likely.  but to navigate how others see one’s self.

that feels strange.

and so for a few more months, these repetitions, and then it will be through.

in these conversations with Lori, this sense of time and angst and worries of crises and seared into the brain memories start to be less likely.  There’s something about a willful realization that it’s possible to stack up a slew of beautiful images, that in the midst of some sort of odious, that the memory doesn’t have to stay there, to replay that memory, that it could move into much more intriguing terrain.

that seems a feasible and interesting realization.  A woman, talking about teaching her nursing majors how to think, encouraged them to imagine how soon reality would change again, how soon they wouldn’t be cleaning up a patient who was horrified about soiling clothing, that soon everything would go away, and the room would be clean again, and the person not feeling the pain of embarrassment, and the sooner you started moving towards that different reality, the better.  and it seems such an obvious way of thinking…the mantra of:  this is temporary.

a thinking acquired in the repetition.

is it the lack of an ability to accept and move through that gets people stuck?  I realize, in this weight work, that i have no way of seeing myself as that much thinner because I don’t really understand how to see a body in a range of realities.  Accurate self perception would require a slew of repetitions–repetitions in which fusion was not the underlying foundation.  And so i make these modest, incremental repetitions, and realize that this shift towards a separated, individuated sense of body could only happen after a slew of other repetitions were in place.  The complicated and painful and also celebratory work of moving through.

The desire lasts longer as the woman has a perfect partner for him, another basket case.

But i recognize these impulses, recognize the way that time would slip away from other work, and the impulse leaves almost as quickly as it arrived.

Instead, I’m left with the work of finding my way.

In this dieting frame, where increasingly I move away from the rigors of dieting, looking and searching for amazing recipes, with a very clear sense of what I can and can’t afford to eat, or how much I can afford to eat of this or that, I listen to the Splendid Table, watch shows about perfect food, and find the attention to food something new.  It feels healthy.  I want Josh to teach me everything he knows about slow cooking on a weber grill; I want to find the perfect recipe for a variety of cakes, pies, meals.  I want food, cared for, nurtured into a meal that isn’t only about just getting nutrition into a body.

Something feels freed up here.  It’s as if I have the possibility of enjoying a full range of food without feeling guilty that I enjoy that full range, that I don’t have to hold my father’s inability to eat vegetables, the weight of these parents, the ways that they navigate food anymore.  They can figure themselves out as they can, and it’s okay if I continue down a path that they cannot find a way to access.  That realization of separation, of individuation, so fundamentally obvious, has taken years to figure a way to enact.  Understanding clear a long time ago; enactment not.

In the end, instead of a dog, I realize that I could spend $500 on food this summer.  I thought, as I looked at the dogs on-line, about the ways a second dog might make me feel more tied down, and then I thought about how I could just explore food instead.

I think it has taken over  a month to finally understand that easy weight loss has something to do with exercise.

You would think, as an academic, that I could figure out this piece of the puzzle.

but it goes something like this:  I eat my 1100 or 1200 calories, as prescribed by weight watchers; I enter my activity, given their options, and consider myself to be exercising moderately.  I calculate the exercise at 200 calories for 45 minutes or 250 for an hour, and in two days, I drop a pound.  In seven days, more than three pounds.

and then this leads to a message from weight watchers about going too quickly, and so I back off, add more calories, but still lose weight, just not as much weight, and it never occurs to me that the exercise might be anything but at a moderate level, until recently, when I finally realize that I probably lose at least 500 calories in these exercise games because increasingly, I’m able to go faster on the bike.  So a pound every other day or so makes sense if you’re sticking strictly to the diet, and only really getting about 500 calories on the intake side.

If it seems so obvious, in retrospect, what makes me curious is the process of coming to the realization.  With only a few variables, why did I fail to consider the idea that i might be capable of more intense exercise.

And then it’s a return to identity framings.  I’m not athletic.  not at all.  I don’t bike quickly; don’t have an athlete’s frame; don’t understand myself in these terms.  Only athletic people could be capable of more intense workouts.  Outside that identity framing, I couldn’t imagine myself capable of burning many calories.

Smirking, I realize that I’m okay with still saying, I’m not athletic, I must somehow, still, look at the role of exercise and make decisions about food, given the exercise part of the puzzle.  And that seems easy enough to do.  No more freaking out about how easily the weight comes off, no more worrying about going down too quickly.  It’s just a set of adjustments.  god save me.