In 2005, I did my first NaNoWriMo, which is this crazy, out of control attempt to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. That year, I succeeded. The next time I attempted it, in 2007, I failed. A few years later, I did another WriMo during August, and this time I succeeded again!
Every year I long to be able to undertake another one of these insane challenges, but most years, as the time draws close, I have to get real and admit to myself that though the spirit is willing, the schedule is jam-packed. It was a horrible feeling that year I had to give up, and I don’t want a repeat of that failure. If I feel there’s any way I can complete the challenge, I’d love to try. But this year, with The Drawing Room, The Marvelous Zone, and Whimsieville, as well as….oh, a full time job and a house in need of a good top-to-bottom cleaning and de-junking, I know it’s simply unreasonable to even think about trying.
So once again, sadly, I must say “No,” to the WriMo. 🙁
Sigh…
But, wait…I just had another idea! The idea of achieving an amazing accomplishment in November does not have to begin and end with the WriMo!
Sure, writing takes a lot of time (as I once heard from famous writer Harry Crews, “You put your ass in a chair and keep it there for a long, long time,” or something to that effect.) But one thing that does not take a particularly long time is EATING RIGHT. I mean, eating takes as long as it takes, whether you’re eating junk food or healthy food. You’re going to spend a certain amount of time preparing and eating food ANYWAY, so why not make an effort to eat only good food?
And why not engage that OBSESSIVE SPIRIT that fuels a NaNo to the task of committing to eat completely healthy for one whole month, with an aim to improving my overall health, and also taking off these eight pounds I have recently put back on?
As you may know, I recently lost a bunch of weight….jeez, could it really be 30 pounds off my highest weight? Wow! I haven’t thought of it that way until now, but when you consider that number…sure does sound impressive!
However, in the last several months I’ve allowed a couple of vacations and a funeral to derail the Health Train. Now, I’m terrified I’m going to get all the way back up to where I was when I started. So, I’ve made a decision: THIS HAS TO STOP…NOW!!!
I know it’s “the holiday season,” or at least it’s approaching the holiday season, and that’s a terrible time to think about trying to lose weight, but in another sense, it’s also the BEST time to think about it, because that’s when we need it the most.
Unless I make some changes in the way I’m eating (and the amount of exercise I’m doing, but that’s another story, and I’ll get to that later), I’m just going to continue putting the pounds back on. I do NOT want to do that! In fact, I would like to RE-LOSE the eight pounds that have come back to haunt me. And I would like to do it before Thanksgiving.
That’s 33 days from now (if you don’t count today), so it’s sort of a tall order, but not impossible, if I’m really strict and really healthy. So, I’ve made a commitment to do this.
My goal is that when I go to Thanksgiving Dinner at Russ’ brother’s house, everyone will say “OH! Look at you! You lost weight!” We don’t see his family often—I think I’ve only seen Richard and Karen and Rick one time since Marianne’s funeral—so this could be the kind of thing where if I make a really good effort, it could be noticeable.
In fact, if I reach my goal, I’ll treat myself to a pretty new dress to wear for Thanksgiving, in a style that is slimming. (Maybe vertical stripes??)
Anyway, I know it sounds kind of shallow to make “what other people say” my goal, my barometer of how I’m doing, but it’s a motivator that works for me. (Sometimes it’s more productive to be honest than it is to be “good.”)
I’m setting the parameters of this challenge from today until just before Thanksgiving for a couple of reasons. First, I’m starting with today because…well, what better time to start? There’s absolutely no sense in waiting until the first of the month or the first of the year. I need to start helping myself NOW. So here we go.
And I’m ending the challenge on the day before Thanksgiving, because I don’t want to miss the fun of the holiday. Now, when I think about it, I realize: isn’t a lot of my weight problem due to the fact that I “don’t want to miss the fun”? For me, eating is fun, it’s part of celebration, part of making every day a holiday. But it’s time to grow up and admit that every day is NOT a holiday. Some days are just days, and you should not be eating like it’s Thanksgiving every day. But on Thanksgiving…that’s the day to eat like it’s Thanksgiving. So that’s what I want to do.
As I mentioned, this gives me 33 days, which is more than a month, and which is more than the NaNo nuts have to get their novel done. It’s a reasonable amount of time, enough to see results, but not so long as to be discouraging.
And there’s yet another method to my madness (MMWAAHH HAA HAA HAA!). The way I remember it, every year at Thanksgiving I sit down and enjoy a huge feast of all kinds of delicious foods, and it’s GREAT! But afterwards, on Thanksgiving night, I kick myself for overeating, and vow that next year will be different. I vow that by next year I’ll have lost the weight, and won’t feel so fat and bloated. Then next year, I’ll look better and feel better, and won’t have to be consumed with the GUILT that plagues me after the Thanksgiving gorge.
So this year, I’m planning ahead. I’m going to make my progress BEFORE Thanksgiving, rather than vowing to make changes after the holiday. And by the way, we know what happens right after Thanksgiving, don’t we? We immediately launch ourselves into the Christmas Season, so all those good intentions about “getting serious” are put on hold until January, when we make a little progress, but by February, it’s back to all the old habits again.
I’d love to break that vicious cycle. Oh, if anyone knows how to break a Vicious Cycle, please tell me! Why can’t I go on Amazon and buy a Vicious Cycle Breaker? That would be easy.
This won’t be easy. But then neither is writing a 50,000 word novel in one month. And I’ve done that before. So I think maybe I can do this too.
At least I’m going to try. I just need to start.
I’m making this a top priority. If anyone wants to join me, please come along! I have some ideas for documenting my progress, though I don’t want to get too bogged down in “documentation,” which can be time-consuming. I’ll still need oodles of time for my other projects, but for this new project, I just need (mostly) a whopping dose of gutsy determination.
I mention December being the Christmas Season, another dangerous time for Those Who Would Be Healthy. How will I deal with it? I don’t know yet. One step at a time. As Mom always says, “Nothing succeeds like success!” and hopefully by the time I get to the 1st of December, I’ll have had so much success in November that I can just continue to build on the momentum.
Cross that bridge when I get to it. But for right now…
I begin.
