Gravitational Absolutist

I'm not much on organized religion. I don't find the idea of God particularly upsetting, but I've found, unfortunately, a lot upsetting about God's churches. God's okay. People... not so much, sometimes.

And I was That Kid, when I was younger. You know, the annoying little shits who think they're so clever...

"If Adam and Eve were the first people on the earth, and they had two sons, one of whom killed the other, where did Mrs. Cain come from?"

"Could God make a rock so big that He couldn't move it?"

You know... I think it's mandatory that all church groups have one. We're a plague, that way.

Now that I'm older, and especially as a mother, I can see some uses for God. Child, "Why do I have to clean my room?" Me, "God said so, now get it done!"

All kidding aside, I've settled into a sort of comfortable philosophy. "Gravitational Absolutist. Gravity works. All the time. Under all circumstances. Everything else... is up for debate." (No, please don't fill my comments with stuff about Zero Gravity... zero gravity is not, actually, being unacted upon by gravity... any mass - and even light - are affected by gravity, whether we are aware of it or not. Zero gravity means only that we do not feel the effects of earth's gravitational pull. If there was no gravity in space, our planet would not stay in its orbit, as well as many, many other Bad Things.)

Ok, I'm finished discussing physics, you can pay attention again.

A few years back, I saw graffiti on a bathroom wall.

"There is no gravity, the earth just sucks."

For a gravitational absolutist, this sort of sentiment is the blackest heresy.

The earth does not suck.

Even in the deepest despair, there is something worth looking at, admiring, doing, being.

It's not always easy to find. It's usually not easily achievable. But it's definitely there.

I say all this because I am beginning to really HATE maintenance. I don't know why I expected maintenance to be easy... why I thought losing the weight would be the hard part. Why I thought I'd "have it down" by the time I got here.

I haven't.

I don't.

It's not.

(As an aside, I still hate my husband, for whom maintenance has also not been easy, but for a different reason. The bastard can't stop LOSING weight. His goal weight was 175. He now clocks in around 157 - 161 pounds, depending on how many cheeseburgers he ate last week. Now, I know - I even feel this way! Frequently! - that many people say "Oh, that's a problem I'd love to have." Except the thing is, it's still a problem! It's difficult to find pants that fit him, especially since he has such long legs... you try finding 30/34s off the rack! His blood sugar, which used to only bottom out once in a while, does so ALL THE TIME now.)

My goal weight is 134. I bounce back and forth between about 135 and 138. If you're familiar with Weight Watchers and their rules, this means I'm paying for meetings. A lot. Still.

At $12 a week.

That's $12 a week I really could be using for something else.

And I debate, back and forth; am I a failure, because I can't maintain in a 2 pound range? Does it really matter to anything other than my pocket book as long as my jeans still fit? Why am I so freaking hungry all the time? I do try, about every other week or so, to go back to eating 19 points a day in an attempt to lose more weight. And it's just not working for me. Days I eat 19 points, I'm so bleeding hungry that the next day I end up eating 29 points.

Part of it is, I think, that I'm not training for my walk anymore. Walking upwards of 5 hours in a day, plus another 2 or so a week, plus hitting the gym twice a week? I'm not doing that most of the time. If I'm doing "well" then I'm getting in about 90 minutes of exercise a week, which is a significant decrease from last year when I was doing 9 - 12 HOURS of working out weekly. The annoying thing is, just because I'm not working out like I used to doesn't seem to mean my appetite has decreased, like it theoretically should.

Part of it is Thomas... in order to not lose any more weight, he's having to eat out, or get sweet or high-fat treats more regularly. This leads those things to being in the house. Or it leads to a LOT of resentment on my part; he can do it, why can't I? Why can he have four slices of pizza and LOSE two pounds this week, and if I have one slice, I gain weight? It's not fair. I feel like I deserve to be able to have an ice cream. Or a candy bar. Or whatever.

And you know, it's not about deserving.

“Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us, come because we actually deserve them? So now I take comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the Universe." - Marcus Cole, Babylon 5

I recognize that it's stupid, childish, pointless, and useless to have those thoughts. We're just made differently, and being mad about it isn't helping. Doesn't make it any easier, sometimes. Recognizing that I'm being stupid, childish, pointless, useless (AND FAT!) doesn't make me feel any better either.

The only thing I can do now is decide what I am going to do now. I can't control Thomas's weight loss, or his frigged up metabolism. Where am I going to go with what I know about myself?

I miss the walking, I really do. And I miss training, and feeling like I'm accomplishing something.

So, I think what I am going to do is sign up for a new event. As much as I liked the Komen 3 day last year, the fund-raising for it made me sick to my stomach. So, I don't want to do that again this year. (I may try to do the 3-Day every other year...)

And then my Weight Watcher's Leader was talking about something she was thinking about doing... The Virginia Beach Rock and Roll Half Marathon.

The thing with the 3-day, it was about endurance.

A half marathon, where I have to do all 13.1 miles in 4 hours? That's about speed. My normal walking speed is about 3 miles an hour. I won't be able to walk that slowly if I'm going to complete the half-marathon before it ends. I won't be able to take sit-down breaks every 2 miles or so.

So... I'm going to do that; sign up is by the end of May and will cost me $85.

Gravity works. All the time. Under every possible circumstance. The rest... is open for improvement.

A Merry Workout Pledge

If you don't read A Merry Life, you should. Mary is adorable, and I'm personally in awe of her... she has done a TON of cool stuff - especially visiting her boyfriend Kepa in New Zealand and I am desperately envious...

Here's a word of advice; DO THOSE THINGS... not necessarily bungee jumping, but get OUT there and do that you can, while you can do it. Don't let your weight get in the way... don't let "what people think" get in the way. There are a lot of things I wish I'd done, and while they're not impossible to do now, it is harder with child...

Anyway, she's been having a tough time recently and asked for some support to get her back in the gym... she said yesterday she'd walk on the treadmill for 30 seconds for each comment she got on her blog... well, she's got some sadistic readers, because she got a TON of comments.

She's also got some masochistic readers, since a slew of us said we'd do it with her. (I personally feel my job as "support" isn't just to pat you on the shoulder and say "You can do it" but to get out there and get dirty/sore/crazy with you!)

Now, by the time I read about it, the possibility for my getting to the gym yesterday were nil. (There's nothing to DO at our apartment complex's fitness center except work out. Which is fine under normal circumstances, but I really didn't think that Darcy would want to sit around for 2 hours and watch me on the treadmill... ) And while she is up for walking certain distances, she gets cranky after about 3 miles or so, and I just really can't carry her very far any more. She weighs like 40 pounds these days! (I know, I know, I used to carry more than twice that around ON ME, and god only knows how I managed to do that, because carrying her for more than half a mile makes me want to throw up.)

So, I said I'd do it, but that I'd get my wii fit and step-raiser out and do step instead...

I'm crazy.

I know it.

You know it.

Now my legs know it.

Mary got 180 comments.

So I did step for 90 minutes. Three 30 minute free-step sessions on the wii. Watched two episodes of Buffy (And, coincidentally, watched the one where Buffy was doing step in the beginning, and Giles was complaining about her deplorable taste in music... )

And then we went to Darcy's soccer practice and I walked around the field for twenty minutes with Thomas. Usually we go around three or four times. (well, it's not just the soccer field, which is actually a half-sized field for the "tiny tots" league, but the entire field, which is the half-sized, the full sized, the baseball area, and a good section of just grass that needs desperately to be mowed.) I've measured the route we walk, it's about half a mile per lap, so in addition to 90 minutes of step, I walked another mile or so.

11,622 steps yesterday. 900 calories burned. 5 and a half miles.

So... I really, really hope Mary feels inspired today.

Because I feel like a noodle.