Resolution

Too many cookies! (not really but that is how I feel)

I’ve decided this year to make my New Years’ resolution public. That way, I am completely accountable if I slack off. I hesitate to say “fail”, because we are always works in progress. I personally think that you should set a goal that seems a little unattainable, as it gives you something to work for.  If you set a goal that is a little beyond your reach and you “fail”, you might feel like a loser and lose your momentum, spiral into self doubt and recriminations, wondering why you even tried in the first place. Those emotions aren’t particularly useful, so let’s take away the idea that you can attain your goal and instead think that you are reaching toward it. That way any motion in the right direction is good and “failure” isn’t in the picture.

As many of you may know, my struggle since I’ve had my baby, and quite possible my entire dance career, has been my weight. Last year, I read a book called Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Furhman, so perhaps I should begin there. One year after I had my baby, I realized my baby weight had yet to shed. I tried hard not to worry about my weight her first year, as I was breastfeeding and wanted to be a healthy, strong mommy for her. I figured some pudge must be good for milk production so I didn’t stress too hard, despite the fact that I got married under those circumstances. It was very difficult not to slip into full blown “brideorexia”. Luckily, I have a very loving husband, who I was pretty sure loved me despite my extra weight. Having a baby helps you be pretty sure of that. Now, was I obese? Certainly not. But I gained a solid forty pounds during pregnancy and only lost about fifteen of that after I had her. I was SURE breastfeeding would melt the weight right off, everyone told me it would, but that was NOT the case for me. Breastfeeding seemed to tell my body, “no, no! I need that weight, I’m feeding a baby here!” and I simply couldn’t convince it that it didn’t need ALL of it. I carried that 25lbs around until last January, when I simply decided enough was enough. I didn’t feel like myself with the extra weight. I felt like a shadow, with less energy, less vivacity, less spring in my step, literally weighed down.

Now to top all that off, I was also dealing with pretty debilitating back pain. See my very first blog post for info on that. I just wanted to feel like myself again. So I read Dr. Furhman’s book and started down a path toward veganism. Not on principal, but for health purposes. For six weeks, I cut out all dairy, all meat, all animal by-products. Did I cheat? You bet. But for those six weeks I bet I only cheated three or four times. And what I really liked about this diet was it really that it opened my mind to foods I never would have tried. I became a huge fan of kale, a delicious super food. The same is true of beans, which I LOVE now. I prefer them to meat. They make me feel more full than meat. And at this point if I eat more than 3oz or so or meat I start to get grossed out by it (unless its chicken fingers, not sure why). But Dr. Furhman goes on to recommend that 90% of your total caloric intake should be from vegetables or fruit. Just pause and think about that for a second. That is a LOT of vegetables. He cautions you to use refined sugar, and flour with caution. That means noddles and bread should not be the bulk of your meal.

Following this faithfully, I lost all 25 pounds and a little more. I can’t tell you how much I liked that little more. But I also think its important to note, I didn’t feel like me again. I felt new and better, vivacious again, but like pre-baby me? No. For one thing, I was still in a lot of back pain. For another, weight had shifted on my body into new places and left others.

Like most people, I was pretty smug about my weight loss and as social pressures weighed on me I gradually slipped out of my healthy life style. My salad lunches were replaced by pasta, I added desserts back in, liquor, eggs for breakfast and before I knew it, I was making french toast for my little one every Saturday and having a slice of cake everyday. After this past Christmas I returned from my mother’s cookie-filled house five pounds heavier than when I set out for it, and that was on top of the eight pounds that slowly crept up on me over the year.

So here I am one year later, determined to reclaim that CLEAN feeling my body had when I was eating well. I would like to lose at least fifteen pounds (remember those goals should always be a little further than you think you can get) but mostly I’d like to be able to move without pain, fit in my jeans and bounce around vitally whenever I choose. I don’t want to feel like a shadow of myself. So my New Years’ resolution is to reclaim me!