Conscientious Observation

Weight: Lo
Motivation: Lo
Self-Control: Lo
Hunger Level: Off the charts

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So while I feel like I am constantly eating (and maybe I am, I tend to slack in the “record everything you eat” department because I just can’t keep up with myself), I have 2 good things to report at this time:

1) I have consistently attended TWO- that’s right, TWO!- Zumba classes at the Y. I even made it through the entire hour the second time! I immediately celebrated the little victory with a hot shower and a very large coffee.  I need to do more, but rather than taking the easy route and just sitting for that hour, I’m DOING something.

2) With a recent change in my health insurance, I now have access to a dietitian/nutritionist. This might be the most monumental challenge for me, because it will no doubt require me to keep a food log, prepare snacks and meals for myself, and spend more on groceries because I’ll be buying particular things for myself rather than for the entire family.

In other news, the battery has gone on my scale at home, so it either reads “Lo” or “888888lbozkg”. One can imagine which reading I prefer. That said, the weigh-ins for the Holiday Challenges for which I volunteered are rapidly approaching, and I can never remember which battery the scale takes: 3025 or 3032?! I’d better sort that out before the end of the week.

Speaking of challenges, I was reading in the December issue of Psychology Today that people who are considered “more conscientious” are more likely to stick to a diet or eating plan than those who are not. Why should this surprise anyone? Obviously if someone is meticulous, controlled, and particular, he/she is going to be that way in ALL (or at least MOST) aspects of his/her life. But then it occurred to me- what about those of us (and I include myself in this group with brutal honesty) who are not so meticulous or controlled? Obviously, our food intake is challenged by this personality trait (quirk? failure?), but just because we are not considered conscientious overall, does this mean we are not at all concerned with certain aspects of our lives or lifestyles?

The implication is that those who are “less conscientious” are therefore weak, perhaps uncaring, about their own appearance and well-being. I’m reminded of a conversation I had once with a stranger regarding dating habits. Said stranger freely admitted that he “never dates fat girls” because, as he went on to say, “they obviously don’t care about how they look.” Fat meant a lack of self-control and self-love, which absolutely spilled into other aspect of life, such as work, finances, and relationships. Fat people were incapable of committed and real relationships, fat people had no self-control and therefore ate everything in sight, fat people were lazy bums who worked easy or no-talent jobs, fat people were not concerned with their wrinkled clothes, stains, worn shoes they couldn’t see anyway...

You get the idea.

This conversation, at the time, pissed me off. I am, of course, a fat girl, so what this guy was saying hit me hard and fast right in the big ol’ gut.  I was lazy, incapable of a real relationship, and ate like a Hoover? How dare he!

And then I realized that his correlation was backwards.

It’s not that being out of control led to not caring about one’s appearance. It’s that realizing that one is fat tends to make one give up on oneself. Failed diets, failed exercise plans, failed failed FAILURE... of course it’s going to take its toll on one’s psyche. After a while, one realizes that one isn’t worth the bother of trying to look good; people just see the rolls of fat, the double chins, the things you’re stuffing in your maw, right? Why should you buy the cosmetics and clothing, get the haircut, iron the shirt, polish the shoes, when the first thing someone else thinks is “good god, look at that heifer!”?  You can’t polish a turd, isn’t that how the saying goes?

And of course you are fat AND lazy, or a fat PIG, disgustingly, repulsively obese... when your head is filled with all these negative adjectives and adverbs, is it any wonder that maybe, just maybe, you might give up on yourself?  It’s like a very, very slow form of suicide; if you care less and less, eventually you’ll just die and everyone will be better off for it.