Paradoxes are painful

But the frustrating thing is, I really didn't want this to be about weight loss. I have read weight loss blog after weight loss blog where people showed off what good, new, self-disciplined people they were, only to lapse back a year later. I have read even more blogs where it's pretty clear that their motivation is how awful they feel about being fat. The guilt, the shame, the disgust and self-loathing. I was so happy to be past all of that.

So I vow now that I will never write a blog about my weight loss efforts. I genuinely love food. I love cooking, I love the social aspect of it, I love sharing recipes with mum and my friends, I love the slow ritual of eating something truly delicious, I love eating out, I even love (if we're going to get cliched here) travelling to all parts of the world without leaving my house. I am not going paleo or primal or sugarfree or low-carb unless I am truly medically mandated to, and at present I am not. As before, this is going to be a blog about learning how to deal with emotions in a healthier way. I'm just going to put more of a focus on the health component. To some people, that might read as bullshit. I don't care.

This whole thing about my family member dying has made me think about what I do and don't want in the life I have now. (Most of those contemplations are way too personal for the Internet.) They have no regrets, but if I were to look at their life and change one thing about it for my own, it is that they have spent most of their adult life on the diet yo-yo cycle. Those periods of obesity affected their self-confidence, their happiness, and of course their health. They say that their mother was the same, always regretting her size and feeling that it held her back, wistfully wishing she could squeeze herself into her old outfits.

There is a good chance that my life won't be long either, so I have no desire to follow in their footsteps. I don't want to be on any diet that is temporary in its lifespan. I refuse to feel horrible about my own sense of attractiveness, and to let it affect my personal relationships and self-esteem anymore. As I wrote two posts down, life is too short for that; more specifically, my life is too short for that. I had never felt that I was worth fighting for before, because failure would be the inevitable result. Yet now, finally, the stakes are too high to let apathy dictate the days that will make up the rest of my life.