Goals for the Week: Your Hideous Control Gets Organized (Kinda)

Bonjou everyone! (not a misspelling, that’s the Haitian Creole way of saying hello). Who knows if anyone is reading this but what the hell.

I started weightlifting again this past week; I’ve really been emphasizing running over the last year and completed 2 marathons and 2 half marathons.

Things learned about marathon training:

1. Your body’s need for nourishment increases. In other words, you want to eat the fucking couch.
2. Joints creaky creaky…sometimes. Maybe more for me since I’m in my forties now.

But now I feel the need for a new challenge. Maybe it’s my Bipolar Brain(tm) but I kind of got interested in body competitions, such as women’s figure, where they lift and lift and sculpt their bodies then go onstage in a bikini to be judged.

Now, as someone who had lots of people in her life mock the way she looked, wanting to do an event like that could sound like crazy talk. Who knows if I’ll do it? I’m 5 foot 11 inches tall and weigh 190 lbs, I have a LONG way to go before anyone needs to see me in a bikini.

I had weight loss surgery in 2016 and lost over 100 lbs. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to see what my body is capable of, like how far I can push it. I now know I can do a marathon. Now I want to see: can I get buff? Can I have the discipline to make a body change like that? We’ll see.

My dietitian gave me some macros to follow, as in on weightlifting days how many carbs, protein to eat, etc. So I’ve had to start tracking again, but then I moaned about it to my sister The Lawyer, who gave me a virtual smack and said “We talked about this and we agreed you should just at first get into a regular weight routine and then we can closely work on the diet.”

Fun fact: side effects of most crazy pills make your short term memory shit. She’s right, you know.

So I have to make the biggest effort of all: going easy on myself. I wasn’t diagnosed with my illness till I was 35, so I spent my whole life thinking when I messed up or fell short of absolute perfection that it was all my fault. That when I couldn’t make friends or be social it was all my fault. Everyone, including my family, telling me “If you just smiled more/tried harder/acted more positive, you’d be happier and have your own personal unicorn.”

Something like that.

But when I got my diagnosis, I had to accept that my brain is wired like a car in the junkyard sometimes. I mean, I’ve still got my intellect (mostly) but it’s a struggle to accept that I function differently than most people, and though I take medication daily and I do All The Things you’re supposed to do to stay healthy (meds, get plenty of sleep, exercise), sometimes shit happens.

I’m going through a bit of low mania right now because I’m bored.

And now I’m bored with writing so I’m going to drink my coffee and get ready for the day. Thanks for reading, my little unicorns.