Drastic Times

 From my scant blogging over the past year, I’ve managed to talk about my struggles with getting healthy. In the past few months, I hit a major setback with what seems to be the very natural but sometimes devastating signs of perimenopause. The more severe and frequent parts being hot flashes, increased bouts of chronic and localized pain and mood swings. Diet and exercise have been difficult to adjust and I ended up putting back on the weight I struggled to lose over two years plus about ten pounds. Despite circuit training and tracking diet (both calories and macros). I tried fasting for longer intervals, both two weekly 36 hour fasts and the infrequent three day fasts. Fasting helps the chronic issues a lot but I haven’t gotten any weight loss breakthroughs. And really, most fasting blogs and advice are coming from young healthy men (and rarely women) so their advice is rarely reflective of what I, a middle aged obese woman with questionable health obstacles, can actually expect to experience or safely do. 

However, I worked up to my current situation and know how to read my body. Early on in the fast, I consumed tea and black coffee but that seemed to cause more problems that it fixed so the last two days have been water and slowly sipping high sodium broth because I don’t want to have a fragile infant’s digestive system after this. Therefore, supplementing a proper level of electrolytes has been key. I take potassium and magnesium in capsule form in the morning with a lot of water then save a probiotic and high sodium broth for the night. Sometimes I do need to take Pepto Bismol, omeprazole or famotidine at night to ease my stomach for sleep but I have not experienced insomnia (and have slept pretty great throughout). It’s really important that if your prolonged fasts are not supervised to take into consideration how your medications will affect you and to never think fasting will be more beneficial by eliminating medication or electrolytes. These do not make fasting results more effective and can cause chronic health issues or worsen current ones if you buy into ‘clean’ fasting bullshit. The same extreme diet and exercise you could get away with as a healthy 20 year old could kill you later. A safe and intuitive fast beats a ‘clean’ fast any day. Also, be advised that you may benefit more from a fasting-mimicking diet, which is often the ‘extremities’ that diabetics are put on. Personally, I do better cutting out solid foods and calorie worries altogether and just use electrolytes as my safety net.

I might have forgotten to mention I am reaching the last 10% of a five day fast. You may have heard you’ll get mental clarity and focus and energy, which I haven’t gotten outside of the second and third days and never for long. I also have inattentive ADHD so hyperfocus and no focus at all are the only two settings I normally have and wouldn’t know what ‘increased focus’ actually means for someone like me. Since the pandemic and moving, I haven’t been medicated for it but outside of working, I don’t need it and I’d rather reserve going back on stimulants for when I’m able to work again. So I can’t attest to whether focus or clarity is actually a positive of fasting because I didn’t really experience anything like that. Just like taking Adderal tends to give the average person meth-like powers of cleaning and laser focus, it really just slows me down so I can socialize and react a bit more controllably.

The worst part can be the hunger pangs (which also never quite went away for me but only ever dulled) and the almost hallucinogenic obsession with food. I can smell it and nearly taste it with enhanced memory and I get insane inspiration for recipes that just dance in my head with powerful clarity. And despite the fact that food obsession is almost torturous while fasting, I record or plan how I will eat afterwards, which actually reduces the risk of overfeeding or outright bingeing. But since I’m a soul cooker, I don’t actually have set recipes; I season to taste and experience so I can definitely list off what I use but can’t guarantee you will balance it the way I do. 

The other negative for me is that anything I ingest outside of the supplements and water can turn into a nasty shart later. Not in my clothes because the Bucket List movie’s ‘never trust a fart’ is so true but having to run to the bathroom for a weak coffee colored wet fart is annoying so that’s why I end up ditching the coffee and tea beyond the second day. However, the supplements are useless without sodium and plain salt water is awful so the high sodium broth is a necessity. I just have to be mindful to either dilute it a lot or sip it very slowly between lots of water or I’ll be hitting the toilet.

This is where I have to assert; these small spurts aren’t dangerous, but take them as yellow flags to discontinue. Because of the dark coloring, it was an obvious symbol of tea and coffee being the culprit. However if you expel a full bout of loose stool or outright water, start eating a small amount of food and break the fast gently and immediately. Even taking electrolytes, frequent urination or an expulsion of diarrhea are immediate signs you’re losing way too many electrolytes and need proper nutrients now. Don’t wait this out or try to bear through it or you can end up heading to the emergency room.

That shouldn’t scare you but it needs to be a proper warning. Don’t feel guilty if you need to end a fast you haven’t tried before or aren’t prepared for yet. I’ve had setbacks but I give myself proper healing time then try again.

I should note that because I’ve had so many weight loss setbacks that this 5 day fast has no weight loss goals attached in the least. I’m not even going to weigh for that reason. This is because I’ve experienced autophagy (pronounced aw-TAW-fuh-jee) benefits for pain and inflammation on previous three day fasts and I’ve since read about extending autophagy and am really hoping it can balance my hormones and reduce pain to make my diet and exercise routines (which are more than sufficient otherwise) more effective.

Which brings me to the benefits that make me fight the worst and keep going. Hot flashes, gone. You actually get cold easier while fasting (that much is actually true) so I’ve done something I haven’t been able to do all summer: turn the AC off for hours at a time. I would love to be able to enjoy this along with energy in the future but this is huge for now. Secondly, HUGE reduction in chronic and localized pain. I have both fibromyalgia and touch and go issues with hips, ankle and toes and all of those have been significantly dulled over the course of fasting. Although lethargy and brain fog have not been so magically affected, I’ll take those two things alone and embrace them as evidence enough.

I do advise you research autophagy. There have been proven studies for its effectiveness in slowing and even reversing some aspects of aging, preventing and even treating cancer (again, if you have cancer, this is something you’ll want to okay with your doctor still), cell regeneration and renewal as well as disposal of old and ineffective cells, and even healing old aches and wounds that therapy and medication haven’t quite helped. Even the revised version of how it works can be quite lengthy, so I’ll pique your curiosity to begin with that. It starts with what to expect in fasting stages (anabolic, catabolic, fat burning, ketosis and deep ketosis) and those will often coincide with how to activate autophagy and what the results can be with extended fasting. What I have read on autophagy during five day fasting has intrigued me. I initially intended to do at least four days but since I am still feeling okay decided to go for five. 3 days can go a really long way with digestion and immunity but you’ll start to involve increased stem cell production and musculoskeletal repair if you keep it going. It’s really interesting how your body starts to assign different jobs when digestion isn’t demanding so much energy and your body becomes more efficient at using what is left. And at the same time, your hunger hormones will still keep screaming at you about attaining food so you don’t just give up and starve. This is largely why I don’t seek to ignore or suppress the desire for food. That is not something you ever want to lose. Instead, rein in on how you can use food thoughts efficiently later. If it’s really becoming too much on your willpower, you may want to do something a little physically exhausting (but not to the point of dizziness or fainting) to sleep off some of the fasting period. 

I absolutely intend on sleeping off the last eight hours. Ten o’clock tonight is bedtime and by 6 AM I’ll have conquered this five day journey. I truly hope I’ve achieved the level of autophagy I need to knock through some health issues but if nothing else, I never lose hope and I never stop trying.

I would love to reach more people on the reality of obesity and personal struggle, to stop people from assuming obesity means a lack of effort or laziness or pretending it’s concern to shame or belittle people or even shower them with good intentions and unsolicited advice without knowing anything about the many medical hurdles and conditions that can make all of the CICO/hot yoga/etc banter just die. It’s lazy ‘advice’ and there’s nothing kind or eye-opening about it. I was healthy, athletic, full of energy and a normal weight up until I very suddenly wasn’t. Circuit training and strict dieting worked to get me close to a normal BMI until it didn’t. I wish I could say what will work next but I don’t know. I’ve never imagined there would be a place where P90X3 and a managed diet wouldn’t work. And more terrifying, that I’d watch the weight pile on plus a little more WHILE I was so carefully dieting and exercising. But when something doesn’t make sense, there are complex levels that only working with a doctor MAY help me breakthrough.

I couldn’t get a doctor appointment for blood tests until late August. I didn’t want a long fast to mask any levels or concerns that might help me get accurate treatment which is why I’m doing it now. By the time I go, I will have literally tried every healthy path I could. I’m actually hoping there is some pesky food intolerance I can eliminate or some hormonal therapy that can correct whatever is happening because… let me tell you, it’s taking every ounce of optimism and determination and self-love to face this. I can never have a model slim body but I sure as hell want to build a strong healthy one. The sort that will have me firing off my creative energy without physical limitations again! I can’t tell you how much I’m obsessed with being that person again.

And I blog this nitty gritty BECAUSE I didn’t see much representing the experience of people in a similar demographic. Ffs, we don’t just get here and give up and we need to hear there’s hope! Keep finding your health and peace, ladies! To the rest of you, I’m rooting for you too but biologically, my experiences probably aren’t going to do you much good and that’s okay too. I’m hoping the foray into autophagy might be enlightening though!

Sharing as Intended

 I kept up with my hiatus with the bulk of social media, which inevitably sent my blog into silence too. But the longer I drifted from using social media to journal and bitch and assert, the more I came back to what drew me to forums and internet socializing to begin with: to learn and to share.

Lately, I’ve set out to learn. I spent quite a while in high output mode and maintaining it actually became draining. There was, as I’ve mentioned, neglect to health, to really absorbing and observing and to people I care about. While these things were patient, too patient in some instances, I accumulated my own guilt in the realization of neglect. I was giving and giving but not open to taking more in to keep feeding that beast.

So I turned to learning. I picked up learning Japanese again, not with a fan-girl love of anime from the past but just because I truly enjoyed what I had learned and wanted to pursue it in much the same way I am always a student of the English language: to see how it can continue to enrich effective communication.

I am still not quite ready to create. But I’ve done some spring cleaning, with notebooks I kept to lead me back to my unfinished books, organizing files, looking at many, many unfinished projects with some reverence and silent resolution to return when the time comes.

Though I can’t definitively produce when the magic hour will come, I continue to remind myself, to tickle the muse, to assure myself I truly had a wonderful world swirling about, one that is immaterial and will never collect dust but is ready to tingle intangible over trembling limbs once more.

I absolutely meant to wax poetic there, but my work does always linger like a romance waiting for my walls to explode into, well, neat proper piles to be swept away by magic brooms because muses aren’t maids. 

In all honesty, I happened upon cherophobia, a true fear of being happy. I have run into challenges that held me immobile when I had convinced myself I was trudging through. But it seemed like every resolve to enjoy and let myself feel deserving, I ran into some shit festival that made me question whether some unknown entity held ill intentions for me. Like many ex-theists, there are always bitter crumbs of a time when I thought maybe a god exists but hates me in particular. I can tell myself it’s absurd but paranoia lies in the recurrence to where I feel naive to not question the coincidence.

Speaking of which (and witches), I do find comfort in flipping tarot cards and cleansing crystals and burning herbs and wearing essential oils. Not because I’m ready to seek gods or spirituality but because I’ve learned that my senses need love to avoid overload. I love the way smells can alter my moods, the way the texture and aesthetic beauty of stones can wrench a smile from my battered soul, the way intentions for my self can make all the difference in how I perceive the world and what I give back to it.

My journey this year is about learning from mistakes and not rushing desperately in to repeat them. I am carefully cultivating a place where my passions can coexist and self-care does not become the sacrifice.

With that, I truly feel the tendrils of hope grow stronger. Age will not be kinder to periods of neglect. I can ill afford to sabotage the present with possible obstacles ahead. Creation always requires some risk, some angst, some care and some clumsiness. I must come ready and still be raw. 

Or as I’ve said in one of my wise metaphorical moments, pluck when ripe or resent when rotten.

On a more lighthearted note, I’ve thought of doing sort of random musings guided by my Google news recommendations. I always manage to kick up a crazy sense of humor inspired by content so it may be worthwhile to try that for blogging. Perhaps a summer project? But I won’t tease; there are a lot of maybes in my present and I’m still developing my goals without the restraint of commitment right now so it’s a thought. My nephews are almost on summer break so I’m feeling a small change may be welcome.

Happy New Year

 It’s odd, but this is the best transition into a new year yet. No alcohol; I opted to fast instead. I gave my nephews a steady supply of kettle corn and hot cocoa with marshmallows but held to my resolve. I spent a good part of the day irritated, which fasting can do when I’m sensitive to smells and sounds already.

But I always find the depth of a fasting state meditative and I’m… grateful. Hopeful, but in that skeptical way that humbles me. That way where being too happy always seems to attract trouble, but secretly craving jubilance.

FYI, my favorite X-Men from the cartoons was, no contest, Jubilee. Rogue was a close second, but even as a kid, her power always struck me as tragic in every way that Jubilee’s was just comically absurd, but fuck it, all X-Women had attitudes that conquered all.

I don’t have a particular point or topic so why not wander where I may!

The new year doesn’t need a new or improved me. I’ve completely adored facets of myself come and gone but I don’t necessarily need one of those incarnations either. I just want here and now to continue to bring me fulfillment and hope. I want to utilize the time I have the best I can, from moment to moment, to not shackle myself in expectations and paralyze my potential. I want to trust in who I am now, to remember not to anchor my happiness to fleeting thing. To creep away from the solace of retail therapy, if only because I am content with what I have and it shouldn’t be squandered or taken for granted. I just send a silent hope to now and later to let these things be used well and fully. That the anxiety and uncertainty they were collected with be made into something powerful and beautiful and humble and simple. That what they become is their true potential and never be disappointed by the lessons they have for me.

I just want the journey. Always. Whatever a cliché it might be, I’ve always stood by the thrill of the journey, not the destination. And how often the magic lie in the places in between, outside of the foreseeable plans and in the goodness and purity of that mystery. Just like in California, it wasn’t the trip to Disneyland or the anime convention that dazzled me; it was the sunburnt Arizona tourist who told me that his kids had tattoos too but he’d always been afraid to get one and the gay black stranger seated outside at a taco joint who caught my eye and instantly greeted me with ‘hi, beautiful!’. I owe some kindness to the world because of these people anchoring me, reminding me that the unknown can be spectacular and worth looking for. The slobbering toddler who giggled while I zoned out on a bench during a lunch break and gently touched my eyebrow ring in wonder and the weathered woman who loved the pink ribbon on my luggage and told me what it was like to work in a mental asylum decades ago. For giving me a perspective that kept me honest and sentimental and worthy along the way. For all the potential in the journey to come, keeping me humble and proudly myself—bring on the new year!

Yay, Late Presents!

 As an adult, I’ve never been disappointed when someone says I have a late present coming. Of course, the sad truth of my life is that I’ve often been told to expect presents that never ended up coming so the first surprise is always that it actually came at all. But childhood disappointments are adulthood’s practicality and skepticism; some of us will learn how to adapt and not develop expectations while some of us will just keep trusting and being disappointed. I’m not gonna lie; I was late to learning not to take people at their word and to instead wait and weigh their actions. 

Honestly, I didn’t remember my sister saying I had a bigger present coming later. I was really good with the slippers she got me on Christmas. They’re my favorite kind, with the shallow backs, fur lining and the rubber soles so they could handle short trips outside. So when she told me shipping was wonky and my ‘other present’ was late, I was surprised. She must’ve told me that already but I don’t retain information sometimes, especially if it’s dropped casually in a phone message and I’m in the middle of talking about something else.

So it came today and I was stunned. I’d talked about getting one but honestly didn’t know where I’d put it: a Cricut Explore Air 2. All of a sudden, I was super motivated to make it fit. I spent about an hour rearranging my desk and dolls and it actually fit perfectly on the far left side of my desk. I ended up buying a desktop hutch so I can organize it better once that comes, but I’ve never been upset when it comes to organizing. Anything that can give a bit of floating clutter a better home is more peace of mind for me.

In any case, it was a bit of a challenge setting it up too. I have an early 2009 iMac that is still running like a champ but the minimal requirements are for OS 15 and up. My iMac stopped upgrading at 11 (El Capitan) and even my MacBook quit before Mojave (not too much younger; it’s a late 2009). I was still determined to make my computer work so I dug around on Reddit and found that the quick fix was downloading a root certificate to the keychain access (even if you’re technologically inclined, that’s probably toeing the line of head-spin gibberish territory), basically manually downloading a permission file that is automatically upgraded when you upgrade your OS but those of us in the OS graveyard no longer get neatly handed to us. Although the Cricut Design Space warned me I might not have ‘optimal usage’ I gave zero fucks; apart from speed issues, there’s no actual hardware integration that is missing from older computers that they can’t handle a communication between a design program and a cutting machine. But thankfully, I’m both a professional designer and a nerd so I didn’t even blink at the warning. That’s right; I’ll Frankenstein this computer just shy of its Thelma and Louise style departure. We’re in it for all it’ll give me.

So I got past that little hurdle and managed to excitedly churn out a test cutout. Then I actually decided to read the instructions and learned there’s a button clearly marked OPEN so I also don’t have to pry it open with my fingernail every time too. Good to know. Leave it to me to solve a technical issue before I find the damn Open button. I researched cutting blades, mats, media types and I’m super psyched that it can cut fabric for my doll clothes patterns too. It’s been a while since I’ve been psyched to try out some new tech but this one just makes so many arduous tasks I used to do completely by hand that much easier. I’m glad it was gifted instead of something I eventually bought much later and didn’t realize what a timesaver it would be. I really look forward to flexing my design chops by loading up some original designs too.

It’s definitely a cherry on the top of a crazy year. Something to look forward to into a new one. Here’s hoping my muse comes crashing through 2022 and I can blow some minds (including my own—it’s a little known secret that I’m usually even more surprised that other people by what I’ve managed to accomplish. They call it impostor syndrome, but in truth, I just can’t retain or quantify what I do. I never feel the immensity of it and have to constantly remind myself to remember I’m worthy of setting a high value on it. I don’t even have the ego to bolster it either). 

One thing I always attempt to reinforce is that ADHD is not a superpower nor a disability. It’s a challenge and one I struggle to control. It can be a trial to my creativity and make me unreliable. This is often why I do client projects very quickly and well. I do not retain or finish anything I do half-assed. I would love to be able to pace myself and slow down or stop and start at will for continuing projects but  there’s always an anxiety that once I stop, I’ll fizzle out. It has happened enough times that it’s not an unfounded fear. I’m a firecracker or I’m a dud. Although ADHD awareness is starting to help me integrate me into social and work situations better, it can still be difficult when working with older generations and agencies/clients that aren’t quite caught up with the times. It’s not surprising to me that people with ADHD are often attracted to creativity; outside of odd professional expectations, art is still a refuge for a chaotic mind and can be our way to contribute to the inventions, entertainment and mental respites that humanity needs. We can heal our own frustrations while contributing to the betterment of the world.

I’ve done some pretty neat jobs along the way. I did a body sketch to be used in identifying injuries in police reports. I designed a website banner for an organization that improved the quality of education for grade school students in India. I did a logo for a theatre group forum looking to connect actors better to auditions whether they had an agent or not. Every time I’ve done a logo or a brand or a flyer, I do manage to retain a small story behind it. Visuals are powerful containers for my memory, almost as much as smells. Although each of these jobs makes for a much more interesting résumé, the formats still cling to the old chunk of time with x company and referential proof. Despite my social challenges, I feel like my power isn’t even touched in a résumé, that the real appeal is in the portfolio, the collection of images of both clients and passion projects and even curiosities that led to designs with no set purpose but solve a unique problem or fulfill a purpose.

That’s why, even when I’m stuck in a burnout or trickle, I know I’m still a powerful artist, a formidable creator. I get back on my programs or projects and it’s like I never stopped. I don’t lose what I didn’t use and sometimes I’ve managed to improve without practice. Sometimes those breaks lead to breakthroughs in thought or intuition and simply wanting something to happen sends me on a search for how I will make it happen.

So here’s another tribute to the unconventional. We don’t fit in boxes and we have our challenges, but we sure as hell belong. The world doesn’t need to accommodate us, just give us room to do what we do best; make the world a kick ass place.

Once we get out of our own way. Let’s be honest, we blame ourselves plenty for that too.

Another Warp Speed Yet Oddly Suspended Year

 I’m sure if I ever bothered to do New Year’s resolutions, I could churn out some painfully misguided goals to burn out on before January is over, but regardless of how pointless I find those resolutions, I still like to give the year’s end some time for reflection.

It still blows my mind that only four years ago, I published my first book… and followed it with ten more. (I actually finished all nine books before I ever published the first, though.) Somewhere between there, my grandma and mom died and I published the tenth book on my mom’s birthday. I managed to finish UnSung but the final two books of that series are still in limbo. Before I was officially burnt out, the pandemic crept up and completely shattered my sense of time. 

At first, I used FaceBook to navigate but it was destroying my moods and making me avoid both the people I live with and the things I usually enjoy doing. I’ve spent much of the past almost-two years in a sort of haze, sometimes feeling like depression or anxiety but making me confused, restless and unfocused above all. I’ve been able to chip at some projects at a snail's pace but mostly just kept… acquiring things. Which temporarily alleviated anxiety but also caused it too. I’m surrounded by so many wonderful things to do and… still don’t really want to do anything. Oddly enough, it’s not the eyes of my many dolls passing judgement but the many I started projects without eyes that feel like they stare with the weight of judgement.

I bought a PS5 and rarely play it, even though I got a PS Plus subscription as well. I mostly poke at stupid phone games I’m not really paying attention to, with my TV playing shows I’m also not paying attention to, just trying to shut up a brain that is either racing in multiple directions or drooling with useless absurdities. 

I hate when I dream. Most of the time I just wake up remembering something weird but entirely too stupid to make into something interesting. Unless hiding in my grandma’s basement and smoking cigars made out of brown sugar is your idea of inspiration for a story. For me, that’s a hard pass. It’s only weird in that sort of way that Mad Libs are random. Mostly stupid but you try to be a good sport and laugh when you replay it.

I still edit for a friend, one of the bright spots in the year. I love his stories and I love remembering I’m really good at things, even when I’m neither confident nor motivated. I really never had hope that I’d ever get lucky creatively and become a name but just having the passion to be creative is too powerful to mourn that. This isn’t a world that rewards virtues I find necessary to live with myself and I have no desire for the misery of ‘compromise’. People seem to define ‘compromise’ as me giving up everything important and them tolerating my involvement. And the less work they actually do, the more credit they want. 

I’m proud of the changes I’ve made this year though. I’m taking better care of myself, which came in handy when I was put to the test, nearly losing my dad to COVID-19 and having to take care of everyone as if all was normal. Fasting has turned out to be a very helpful discipline, mentally and physically, and I will keep it up as long as it continues to be beneficial. Once I can break through the haze, this room I’ve been stocking and cleaning will be a powerhouse base for amazing projects again. One thing I’ve learned that can always float me through depression is maintaining a clean and tidy space so that when I hit the ground running, I’m not impeded by chaos and likely to fall right back into depression again. Depression can both cause paralysis and encourage inertia. It took a lot of time to discipline myself to the mind-over-matter state of telling myself to just move. Even if it just meant breathing and focusing on tightening muscle groups until I could even lift an arm. (You never ‘get over’ depression; in my case, there was a lot of building up to the will to want to bail out.)

There was always that scene in The Neverending Story that stuck with everyone who saw it. The horse just giving up in the Swamp of Despair and how much we didn’t get it like Atreyu yelling at it to just get moving. Until we did get it, the ones that became depressed when we got older. I think that scene is even more painful to think about now because I understood that loss of will. I remember the horse really looking afraid, confused, crying out towards the end but ultimately succumbing. But I also remember that life went on for Atreyu. It had to. Life is for the living and ultimately, once I’d hurt those I loved by giving up, they’d have to carry on letting my loss burden them in a way that they might have never really understood why I couldn’t just TRY.

So I do. Some days I just go through the motions but I know that ‘just’ doing anything is sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves. To let ourselves cry in bed too, but to get up and prepare for the world we want to be in once the funk passes. To be the only ones to know how brave we have to be to fight those misunderstood battles and overcome.

So I go into the new year without expectations or goals or ultimatums on my healing paths. There is no shortcut to that breakthrough but it will come, sooner or later, and I must celebrate my victories and learn from the defeat. There are great things ahead, good and bad, and I only hope that my journey has more great adventures ahead.

Is It Accountability?

 I realize I overthink things and often to the detriment of the original curiosity, but throughout my attempts to find a lifestyle that is healthiest for me, I’ve had to stop and ask many times: is this really healthy?

I’ve questioned ideas of ‘body positivity’ that are now weaponized as ‘non-diets’ or ‘lifestyle changes’; anything to avoid the ‘negative’ connotations of weight loss. Except programs like Noom are wielding this vocabulary of a ‘psychological’ approach to behavioral change to mask that their measures of success are exactly the same. You still track food and water, you still step on a scale, you still restrict your calories. Pardon my French, but that’s… a fucking diet.

I’m not going to say that all of the programs are insidious and heinous as I’m sure they can be helpful to some, but… they absolutely reek of the possibility of danger for those desperate and prone to eating disorders, body dysmorphia and classic depression. They still ask you how fast you want to lose weight and give you far too few calorie limits if you actually calculate what your body should be getting. After losing 5-10 pounds, you should always recalculate because your unique caloric needs involve more factors than these programs bother to consider.

I tried Noom. Although I skipped out on the group and coach options because I don’t want cheerleaders or clichés spit at me. I was always fucking hungry but good job! In the first three months, I lost 5 pounds then I couldn’t budge. I was exercising daily, well beyond a minimum but I was still always tired and sore and hungry.

I remembered that for past attempts, more working out and more stress on your body means you need to feed your damn body. I noticed that my FitBit did a better job of accounting for how many calories I needed and used so all this red/yellow/green food bullshit that Noom tried to pass as innovative was moot.

With FitBit, another 10 lbs were lost but again, plateau. By that point, I was certain I was facing the hormones of a 40 year old woman so I didn’t stay frustrated, just kept doing what felt healthy and didn’t make me miserable.

I’d tried intermittent fasting years before and hated it— the 16:8 method that always seems to be so popular. I liked the reprieve from counting calories while fasting but it always seemed to create this misery that made it hard to sleep and made me ravenous when it was time to eat. However, I’d done 24 hour and even 3 day fasting in the past with more success and wanted to try again.

At first… well, it was misery. It came with hunger, diarrhea, headaches, dizziness. I didn’t lose weight after either. However, I noticed with these longer fasts that I really loved going a day or three without calorie counting and even if I ate all I wanted, by the end of the week, my calorie intake was consistently in a safe but generous weight loss margin. I started consistently losing one pound or two every week and I was feeling stronger, sleeping better, getting nicer skin and hair, managing my moods better. I was scared at first, because most programs tend to punish you for fasting as if it’s an eating disorder, but it’s actually improving my mental state far more than medications or other methods I’ve tried. It was more powerful than meditation in cleansing myself of racing negative thoughts.

Calorie restrictions made me paranoid, more accepting of the daily misery of choosing foods that never quite fulfilled me but gave me those weight loss numbers: good job! But a good job doesn’t make you feel like a failure. It doesn’t make you obsess on choice and numbers and balance your self-acceptance on it. The problem with this ‘mindfulness’ and ‘lifestyle change’ dialogue is that you dread that this is your life now when it’s not getting easier and you’re not really feeling better.

One of the most valuable concepts I ran across was something that was only briefly touched upon by Tony Horton in the P90X series. Although he also learned the hard way that there is definitely such a thing as working out too much, I wondered why he never found a way to push this valuable concept more, but then, when you’re BeachBody’s bitch, it’s all about selling workouts, subscriptions and that Shakeology garbage, so I’m sure he might’ve ramped it up more if they could’ve packaged and sold it…

Intuitive eating. It’s introduced as the eventual goal beyond the lists of healthy foods you should be aiming to fuel your body with. Horton tells us that the lists are never meant to bind or restrict but to guide us into comfort with healthy foods and then trust what you’ve learned. That once you’ve tracked and weighed and found some favorite recipes… you know better so cut the cord and trust your knowledge.

Because it’s so damned scarce and influencers can’t package it to sell something with it, it only ever blips in the waters of health and fitness circles. But aiming for intuitive eating, where healthy eating and indulgences aren’t boring punishments or ‘cheats’, is truly a huge factor in a truly healthy lifestyle. It’s not really a change but an adjustment that won’t punish you or drive you crying towards craving binges.

I know how to be accountable but these programs need you to depend on them to ‘do it right’. I’m going to keep tracking my fasts and water intake but until the end of the year, I’m cutting the cord on all diet and exercise tracking and just doing what I already know works. If only because I feel like the dependence on these ‘helpful’ programs is only meant to be temporary and can easily become disordered. Too often, people quit out of frustration or quit when they reach their goal and bam, before they know it, right back to everything unhealthy because these ‘lifestyle changes’ that motivated them to reach their goals were never established as maintainable in the long term at all. 

If you’re saying that you only need to be this strict until you reach this goal, re-evaluate why you need it at all. Instead, start looking for the baseline of diet and exercise that is actually improving all aspects of your life. Get at least your minimum requirements but absolutely push when you’re feeling terrific. Have a healthy relationship with food, with your appetite, with your tastes and preferences. Don’t do someone else’s diets and exercises. Find what works for you. 

Another problem with these programs is their calculators that promise to perfectly tailor your needs when you plug in these only vaguely personal statistics. Statistics that do not consider your genetics or personal health factors like mental illness or deficiencies or hormones. Use sites like SmartBMI or really accurate BMR calculations to determine how many calories are really safe for healthy weight loss. And remember that rapid weight loss can cause issues like painful and loose skin and deficiencies and bad chemical imbalances.

I keep talking about this because in my search to find the best way to do things, no one ever told you how to stop relying on those helpful things and trust yourself and enjoy life along the way. While ‘fake it until you make it’ is also a good short term goal, a healthy life is about adapting to a series of short term husks not chaining yourself to a long term goal that makes you inflexible and miserable.

Quitting social media for a while taught me this. Start small. Dependency can often excuse itself as freedom, even when you’re completely miserable. Tell yourself you’ll try this for a week. If it feels better, try another. Don’t quite quit if it’s not the best option. Adjust and try again. I still dip onto social media when I have a distinct use for it but I don’t depend on it for a sense of well-being. Diet and exercise need to be adjusted in bits too. You can’t hate them but tell yourself it’s worth it. You can’t achieve or maintain a sense of well-being built on lying to yourself.

If you want accountability, make sure questioning if it’s really working is part of your weekly evaluation. You may find a niche that you actually enjoy and not want to change, but evaluate it weekly anyway. Because misery can hide in complacency, give yourself a chance to change your mind and make small adjustments.

Accountability is a system of checking in with yourself. There isn’t an app for that. Intuition is your tool to grow and nurture. Don’t discount it on any journey to realize your potential.

What Do Atheists Have to Celebrate?

 Those who believe in a god or gods have an uninformed tendency to see atheists as missing the fundamental parts of simply being human. Yet it’s not just religion that can pick apart and dehumanize our fellow human beings; we find ways to separate each other based on skin or political ideals or how many fingers and toes we have. You name it, someone has found a way to label themselves as righteous or superior. Sorry, friends; that’s 100% ego and no higher powers involved.

What holidays have always required are imagination and necessity. I don’t ‘celebrate’ Christmas on the myth of Jesus anymore than I subscribe to the myth of Santa Claus. But it’s a magical season because of the mix of iconography, the glitter, the characters, the pageantry, the aspirations of artists. You don’t have to believe there’s a ‘reality’ to the magic to admire it. Christmas marks an exciting time of year where I get to pick and choose gifts for people I care about, wrap them with themed paper (or have Amazon stick it in a pretty bag) and anticipate the magic of gifting. It’s a slew of traditional songs, some I’m eager to hear and some I could do without, it’s tension and contemplation, it’s decorating and joining in on the magic.

For the atheists, it’s just a choice to go with the flow of a cornucopia of magical times to choose from or one to bah-humbug and bypass. The most interesting thing about the holidays are not all the religious connotations theists try to enforce but all the layers of pagan celebration they were superimposed over. It’s not our beliefs in particular that make us so interesting but the need to imagine and create and share and reflect on who we are that makes these days stay on my calendar.

There have been low points in life where I’ve wanted nothing to do with holidays. You bargain with the universe to simply keep someone you love on this mortal coil or your heart is just too broken and vulnerable to file in and celebrate anything. And when I’ve loved, and lost, I’ve even wished I could simply believe that something out there could be bargained with, but even the insanity of grief doesn’t conjure a sudden belief or hope that what I want is a wish that can be granted by any benevolent being.

I almost lost my dad to COVID recently and I spent weeks living in a limbo of pain and preparing myself for the worst. Good news doesn’t magically heal that wound either. Brushes with mortality are always hard lessons and the fear always lingers. I was prepared to keep caring for my nephews and trying to give them a good Christmas regardless. I dove into daily tasks robotically and I still haven’t revived my creative muse. I was prepared to give so much up just to hold so much together for those I love.

So I’m drained. I’m tired. I’m skittish. I’m trying. To heal, to find my creative self, to daydream, to find my voice again. 

But people are still making light of an illness that nearly killed my dad, made my sister very ill, could very well still take someone else I love or even get worse. I’m very, very sick of people confusing the fantasy of belief with the reality of fact. I’m very, very tired of enduring preventable battles.

Holidays are often attacked for being about greed or entitlement but right now, it’s an anchor for my sanity, a place to warm my frozen heart with kindness and caring and gratitude, that right now, I’m not mourning someone I love as a sad statistic. It’s only been a week since I heard the good news that he’ll be okay for now. I’m wounded and weak and human.

Whether someone chooses to believe it or not, I’m factually human. With my own flaws and dreams and magic to spare. And right now, just trying to keep away from plunging edges, treating myself more gently, trying to comfort a hyperactive brain away from the tumble of violent emotion. With stoic face and silent nighttime sobs. Imagining who I want to be until I am strong enough to be her.