What Can I Lose?

My mother in law collects workout equipment.

It's the truth.  In the way some folks collect tea cups or comic books, she seems to have a need for the latest fitness gadget.  She has a Bowflex and one of those disc things that you swerve from side to side on instead of doing crunches.  She has hand weights and excercise bands.  There is a contraption in her living room which is a bench of some sort that does something to strengthen your legs while you watch TV.  She has a ballet barre called Fluidity (or something similar) and I think she ordered the P90X DVDs.  I'm secretly amazed she doesn't own a Shake Weight.

Here's why I tell you this - I wish I had this stuff.  More than that, I wish that once I had it I wanted to use it, or at the very least didn't become so frustrated at being unable to use it like the horribly perfect tiny powerhouses bouncing around on the screen in front of me do that I give up cry.  That is my downfall.

I see my Facebook friends looking like a million bucks, grinning from ear to ear as they finish their 5K races and their marathons.  They glow after their PiYo and CrossFit workouts.  They show off their Beach Body breakfast shakes and shake their fabulous heads of hair they acquired from eating healthy diets of vegetables and organically sourced almond milk.

In the meantime, I had two different dinners (since the first one was ruined by a processed faux General Tso sauce) and I'm eating a pumpkin muffin.

I am a monster.

A cookie monster.

It isn't cute.

I realize my actions are unhealthy.  I really do.  My niece posted one of those "11 Facts about how horrible the foods you love actually are" links on her Facebook today.  I knew about all 11 facts.  The artificial color that comes from beetles and the wood pulp that is a filler in many cheese products - yep, heard about those.  The laundry list of chemicals and bad for you crap that is packed into things that I find tasty and delicious is long and I should find it shocking.  Hot dogs and Pop Tarts ought to turn me off with their ridiculously processed, fat filled, Nitrate laden bodies, but I eat them anyway and revel in their awesomeness.

It's depressing.

The only thing more depressing is how much I hate the fact that I don't seem to gather the will to do anything about it without diving deeper into a pit of despair and self-loathing.

I'm never going to be tiny, but I wish I could be healthy and I have a very hard time reconciling the wishes with the needs.  I know I need to act but I have a hard time acting.  It's a terrible catch-22.

Andy's mom bought me a set of Zumba DVDs.  She got them for my birthday.  My birthday at least three years ago.  When I was cleaning, I came across them.  I also found a book with a Diet plan in it that I got several months ago to review.  It seemed do-able and some of the recipes actually sounded really delicious.  I unearthed several ballet workout DVDs I won from a Facebook page called "Fit and Healthy" too.

Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.

Andy said something tonight that hit home.  He asked if I "just didn't see things on the floor".  I didn't know what he was talking about.  Apparently I had knocked the pepper shaker off the stovetop as I was fixing our first and second dinners.  He then said "I think maybe your boobs are so big you can't see past them!" and he laughed.

I know he was teasing me and that he wasn't making a comment on my weight or even saying anything to make me feel bad.  If anything he was joking in a way he thought was sweet and sexy.  It just made me go "woah."

This is outta control.

I think I ought to borrow some of mom's collection.  That Fluidity bar had looked like something I could probably do since she bought it.  I don't think she's using it right now either since she has the bench thing and the swervy thing and all the other fitness possibilities.  I don't really know since I've never seen her use any of the equipment she has.

I understand that completely.

I just can't deal with being dismayed by my lack of athletic ability.  I keep telling myself that I need to be okay with sucking at any fitness program I try in the beginning, but that's not the worst part.  The worst is  thinking people might see me.

I'm sure that seems ridiculous, but when I am aware of someone watching me I can't get my mind off of the fact that they're judging me.  Gyms don't work because I know I'm the fattest person in the room and everyone's laughing at me.  I used to go with a friend and talk to distract myself from the people around me or go really late at night so there wasn't anyone else around to watch.  That was quite a feat since I don't drive, but I managed because the place I went was between my work and my apartment or my sister's restaurant and I could walk there afterwards.  I would do just about anything to not have anyone look at me.  I don't evenlike Andy to walk through the room because I am pretty much just ashamed to be in my body.

I often dream of going on The Biggest Loser and dedicating months to getting in shape and learning how to eat better.  In reality I would never survive that scrutiny.  I would freak out because that's the opposite of what would work for me.

I need a plan.  Something I can accomplish at home, alone, without laying out a ton of cash.  I also need encouragement and something to drown the voices that scream at me, reminding me how much I dislike the body I'm in and how I'm never going to get out of it.

I'm open to suggestions.

Tomorrow I will at least gather my possibilities.  That's a start.