Just color me orange and give me a spaghetti squash drip. Its Fall and I’m marginally sucked into the squash lifestyle.
Thursday night I made Pumpkinsnaps. Basically its the Maple Ginger Snap cookie from last week, but with a 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree instead of a 1/3 cup maple syrup all based on this recipe. De-freaking-licious. What’s more? Today we attended Pumpkin Beer Festival. Ridiculous I tell you! It’s like I’ve died and gone to heaven. My gourd over floweth. 😛
But enough about pumpkin (as if that was possible).
I’ve been running into a strange issue as of late- I don’t know what to write about. I mean, I suppose I could continue to write about how I make food and eat it or go to yoga… Which if you’ve been following me for any amount of time, you know that it’s pretty much what I do. Occasionally I throw in recipes and antics about what I did on weeknights or weekends. Which is fine. After all, posting a daily synopsis is the reason I setup this blog.
So here’s the internal struggle. Should I continue blogging on a relatively daily basis? Tracking is good, but I feel like I’ve hit a wall content-wise. Generally personal diet tracking isn’t supposed to be interesting. Or is it? I don’t really want to post anything unless I’ve got something even remotely worthwhile to talk about. Not to grand stand, but there is too much fluff on the internet already.
Re-reading my posts (again) I’ve come to one AMAZING conclusion. Depending on your definition of dieting- in some ways I have already stopped. I’m still drinking the shakes on a daily basis and my portion size isn’t horrible. But looking back at my posts, I mean REALLY looking back at my posts there’s one pattern that keeps popping up.
“I need to change my actions in order to achieve better results.”
And its true.
Though it brings me to my next question: When do you know that you’re done dieting?
For about the last two months or so I’ve been hovering around 245-250 lbs. And the thing is while I haven’t lost weight, I’ve gained a lot of muscle. In the past two months I’ve made leaps and bounds in the range of push-ups, rope-climbs, crunches and more. Just this morning I made 4 successful “toe climbs”, when just 6 months ago I couldn’t even do 5 push-ups on my feet. I’m continually making progress… So again, when do you know that you’re done dieting? When do you know you’ve achieved a sustainable lifestyle?
For me the answer to the first question comes in two parts. 1) When I say diet in this manner I mean, adjusting the quantity and type of food you eat in order to achieve weight loss. And 2) really, is that you’re never truly done dieting if you simply watch what you eat. This is something I aspire to do until the day I die.
But as for the second question? When it comes to fitness and lifestyle, I’ve found a really good groove. I’m working out, I’m getting stronger, and while I know that I won’t be drinking shakes for two meals a day for the rest of my life…Until I find a body-shape that I’m happy with, I’ve found my rhythm. I know I’ll hit any number of other walls at some point. Walls come in a variety of different shapes. Just like this wall I’ve been struggling with as far as continued weight loss. I know the answer to losing the weight (a stricter diet). But walls are really just hurtles. You just have to find the right way to get over them
One more thing. I’m happy.
Not just with my partner, my career, but I mean… Just look at the blog! That’s another thing you could easily say about the majority of my posts. No matter what struggle of the week was or the random scattering of bad days I’ve had. I’m really, just genuinely happy.
Gah! Why does it feel like I’m saying good bye? Haha because I’m not!
I think I’m just shifting gears with the blog. The only person whom I’ve been accountable to is myself. And what greater critic eh? The thing is, I want to continue to blog, but without the personal boundaries of “diet” focus that I’ve forced upon myself. As with most ambitions in life, the only one stopping me (or imposing restrictions in this case), is me. But as this blog is a reflection of my thoughts… I figured, I’d externalize my thinking and just in case anyone else reads this, inform you of the shift.
Chances are you won’t see a daily update much in the future, but 1-3 times a week? Pretty darned likely. I’m going to challenge myself to post… anything. Poems, stories, journals about how a day or weekend went, and just… catalog life. Turn this blog into something that better expresses the whole me. It may suffer a lack of theme for a while, but I promise (myself), fitness and diet will definitely never go away entirely.
Nope, I’m still gonna fight the good fight. I shall post my achievements in diet, in yoga, in the kitchen… In sewing, knitting, sketching, designing, camping, singing… and the list shall go on. 🙂
Tomorrow is a brand new day.
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