Obsession Inconsistencies

Today is my birthday and I am now 55. This has nothing to do with the topic of today's blog - but felt it was important to mention in the event you felt the need to sing.

No, today, I want to talk about my obsessions and their success rate or lack thereof. For example, I feel that triathlon is an obsession. It's a great one to possess and difficult to avoid. I think that you either love triathlon or your hate it and if you hate it, you don't get involved or quit.

Stating that, I do believe that I spend a fair amount of mental time thinking about my workouts and my upcoming races. Am I working out enough, hard enough, what about injuries (now another obsession to add to my list)....so it's a fact, I'm obsessed about triathlon. Oh, did I tell you that I love the sport of triathlon?

Another obsession, is the need to lose weight. Notice I said "need", not the actual act of weight loss - which drives me crazy, as any good obsession should do. I very badly want to lose 5-10 lbs. How hard could that be? What do I need to do, cut off a foot? I keep vascillating between different weight loss programs. But here's the thing - I feel like I'm an expert on weight loss and nutrition. No formal training, don't play a nutritionist on TV or anything like that, but I've been dieting since I was 14 and considering today is my birthday, that's 41 years of weight loss obsession.

I was a skinny kid - there is a picture of me standing next to the skinny tree. We have a lot in common. But as all good teenage dieters do, I didn't eat to stay skinny and eventually my fat cells learned how to hang on for dear life. Once they've gone into survival mode, you are hard-pressed to get them to shrink - as shrinking is the best you will ever do, they will not go away. So any teenagers around? If so and you aren't obese already, don't diet until you hit your 30s. If you are already obese, than that's a whole other discussion that I won't go into today - but suffice it to say, get obsessed about some sport - how about triathlon? How about putting the Wii away and going out to play. Back on topic....

As my decades have piled on the weight has come and gone, but mostly come. My heaviest was 196 - pushing 200 brought about an awakening and I quickly got my act together - at least a couple of times. I never want to approach that number ever again. So 40 lbs or so later, I've been stuck for the last 10 years. Good that I've never gone back up, but I can't seem to break this massive plateau.

Don't get me wrong. I have wonderful intentions. I try to eat healthy - most people who know me give me a bad time about what I eat - always asking me if I ever take a break from healthy eating and the fact is that I take too many breaks. So I'm chastising myself here.

I love cookies and chips. I don't have too many of them in the house, but I find substitutes. So instead of cookies, I eat chocolate graham crackers. Well, they are probably just as bad. Everything in my house is reduced fat, except myself and my husband.

I went to a nutritionist two years ago and she said I needed to stop eating reduced fat food and eat REAL food and probably more of it. But that didn't work for me either. I did try that approach and either gained weight or lost nothing. I have all the latest diet books at my house - in fact, I could probably open a library of weight loss tomes and triathlon how-to's.

So my inconsistency is that I cannot reach a level of success in weight loss with all my knowledge and with my life revolving around the fact that I want to lose a few LBs. Actually, one of the reasons I got into triathlon was as a means of losing weight - NOT SO my little friend. You can exercise 8 hours a week and lose zero pounds.

Did I mention the various types of supplements I've tried that were recommended as having weight loss potential? None of those ephedra-type products. Tried one once and thought my heart was going to come out of my chest. Scary feeling - decided that was a bad road to go down. Dead does not equal weight loss and besides, I want to look really nice and thin in my coffin - but not from a disease that causes weight loss so I have to be careful what I wish for.

So that's the inconsistency - I want to do, I obsess about it and it doesn't happen. Did I mention today is my birthday? A full day of fun things to eat - and therein lies the problem...