2013 In Review

Well, I’ve spent the last 6 days trying to read back through some/most of my 2013 blog posts, but I’ve been unsuccessful due to my lacking skills in prioritizing time as well as (what I can only assume is) depression-fueled inability to focus on anything for longer than about maybe 15 or 20 minutes. That’s probably being real generous with myself.

I did get through enough to know one thing: I didn’t get anywhere close to the physical goals I set for myself. 22% body fat by year’s end, eh? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAaaaaa….ha…heh. Siiiiigh.

But I also know another thing: I’m much happier in and with my body that I was a year ago from today. I love my body most of the time, and I love the way it looks a lot of the time. I’ve done a lot of thinking about if I’ve reached my “happy weight”, I’ve done a lot of thinking about redefining what “goal” really is.

I set a lot of goals for myself throughout 2013 – some realistic, and some not. But what I noticed as I tried to skim through my updates each week/month, I put a lot of pressure on myself to accomplish a lot of different things at once. I just don’t believe you can wake up one day and say, “I’m going to change everything about my lifestyle TODAY!” and be successful. It’s great to have the epiphany that something should change or needs to change. But my greatest piece of advice is: baby steps. One thing at a time. I’m always saying, “Starting right now I’m eating all the fruits and veggies and lean proteins and doing all the fancy workouts and do the exercise EVERY DAY ALL THE TIME!! ALL THE THIIIINNNGSSSS!!!” – and then I do nothing, or only tiny pieces, or give up on myself, etc, etc. I noticed every other post title throughout 2013 said something along the lines of “Do-over!” “Making excuses!” “Rethinking!” “Begin again!” “I hate the scale!” “The scale hates me!” “Failing again!” and on and on and on… I would set all these goals each month, I would meet none of maybe one of them, I would feel like a failure, I would press on with workouts and making healthier food choices, but I think I stopped trying. I stopped trying early. I think by March I was completely defeated and that just continued on. By June I was sinking deep into full-blown depression, and there was no amount of recovery when it came to getting back on the weight loss/fat loss wagon. I didn’t have the emotional energy.

I’m proud of myself for getting more body positive toward the end of the year, for cutting myself a break from all those goddamn monthly goals, for saying to my broken self, “Hey, dude, it’s okay. It’s cool. You keep doing the best you can, you keep making the effort when you have the emotional and physical energy, you cut yourself some slack and be kind to your brain and your body both in your thoughts and in your daily habits. YOU KEEP DOING THE BEST YOU CAN.”

And so I have. Mostly. I’ve been off and on with workouts. I’ve been pretty steady with my diet of about a 60/40 split of healthier foods vs not-so-healthy foods. Yes, ideally I’d like to be at a 80/20 or 90/10 split – but this is the best I have in me right now, and that’s okay.

In July I updated my goals for the remainder of 2013 to: Be Happy, Be Healthy, Be Active. Then in September, I took my weight and measurements and upped my calories to a maintenance level of about 2400. The idea was to stop stressing about losing weight/fat, doing purposeful exercise, and to just kind of live life. I thought this would especially help me with the “Be Happy” part. However, in giving myself the permission to just be, I realized the large majority of my stress and subsequent depression has/had nothing to do with the pressure I was putting on myself to reach my ideal body aesthetic and lifestyle. In fact, I would go so far as to say that “stress” was probably a hearty and healthy distraction from the real issues. Now that I took a couple months to take that distraction away, I feel I’m more unhappy than ever with certain aspects of my life. It’s honestly somewhat debilitating. I couldn’t tell you how I manage to get out of bed every morning. I have no idea how I do it. But I feel like I’m getting off track a little bit. While this blog is supposed to be about all aspects of my life, I would like to focus on my physical/healthy changes over the past year.

In short: Not much has changed. I’m almost exactly the same weight (give or take a pound or two, depending on the day), I have slightly less body fat, my body composition overall has changed just a little, and I feel like I’m still dealing with the same struggles when it comes to food/exercise.

Here’s the stat comparison:

January 2013:

Weight: 189.6 lbs

Estimated Body Fat: 32.5%

Chest (across bust w/sports bra on): 39”

Waist: 34.5”

Waist at naval: 39”

Hips: 45”

Bicep (flexing): 12.5”

Thigh: 26”

January 2014:

Weight: 191.2 lbs

Estimated Body Fat: 31.5%

Chest (across bust w/sports bra on): 37”

Waist: 33”

Waist at naval: 35.5”

Hips: 44.75”

Bicep (flexing): 12”

Thigh: 25.75”

(These stats were actually from the end of November 2013, so there may be some slight changes since then, but nothing so major that my clothes fit differently or that I can see any difference. The weight was as of last week, so that’s current.)

Positives of 2013: I learned to love my body as it is now, to not expect it to be/look perfect, to appreciate for doing all the amazing things it does and putting up with all the terrible things I do to it.

I plan to take my body positivity into 2014 and make a conscious effort to drop the “fat talk” I did a lot of on this blog in 2013.

Stay tuned for an update on how I plan to get through 2014 both from a health/fitness perspective, as well as from a human/emotional perspective.

Thanks for being my readers for another whole year!!