Inertia

Mr. Shrinking Knitter and I are getting ready to move my little office from our house into a bit of space in the large office/family room which is otherwise known as "upstairs" – the second floor of the garage. We designed the garage together and had it built about five years ago, I think. It seems like it's always been there. And it's always been his office.

We'd like to turn my office in the house into a tiny den/TV room, as neither of us really likes having a television in the bedroom, and our living room – well, there's no place to put one. On one side of the room is a large fireplace; the other walls are all sliding glass doors. We did not design the house.

In order to accomplish this move, I need to go through filing cabinets, bookshelves and storage bins to weed out what I no longer need and to determine what will go where. In other words, it's time to purge.

But I don't wanna.

We've already had a two-line phone jack installed, in order to hook the computer up to the very slow dial-up internet connection. [While arranging for this, a Verizon representative told me it looks like broadband will be in this part of the Middle of Nowhere February 17. I'll believe it when I see it.]

At any rate, I'm at a point where if it is to be, it's up to me. And I Just. Can't. Get. Started. It's overwhelming. I need Flylady standing over me, cracking the whip every 15 minutes.

I'm a crafty kinda gal. I need a clear surface for working on paper crafts, beading and bookmaking. And the stuff one needs to do these crafty things takes up space. I have several storage tubs full of supplies, as well as a six-cube storage unit stuffed full of, well, stuff. Most of my yarn and knitting tools are already up there; at least that's done.

What does this have to do with weight loss or getting healthy? Not much. But maybe talking about it here will spur me on to some action.

Thank goodness this inertia hasn't migrated over to the fitness part of my life. I'm following my training program to the best of my ability, which is to say I'm not quite getting the mileage in for the speed drills, but I'm pushing myself farther each week. Speed drills have always been my least favorite part of training. Fartleks – a Swedish word for 'speed play' – are more likely to happen than a sustained 11-minute mile.

I'm going to make up the missed mileage from yesterday sometime today. I was supposed to have done five; I did three. About half of that was at 5.5 mph, and I felt good when I was done. But it wasn't long before I felt really drained and, consequently, no work got done in the office.

Hopefully these almost-daily runs will become routine soon, and I can work on the rest of my life.

Since this post isn't terribly inspiring or motivating, I invite you to go visit Jonathan, who has some really terrific thoughts on how losing weight has changed more than his body. He really does maintenance well, and offers lots of good reasons for continuing to whittle away the pounds, if that's what you're trying to do.

A rare Saturday quote day

Many people fail in life,
not for lack of ability or brains or even courage
but simply because they have never organized
their energies around a goal.
~ Elbert Hubbard

Your comments on Thursday are most appreciated.

Many of you had never visited here before; most of the hits I've gotten the last two days were from referrals after PastaQueen included a link in her blog. So, welcome! And I hope you'll come back!

What I'm about to say is going to make me sound terminally unique, and that's not my intent. But here goes.

I'm not a young, athletic woman in the middle of my reproductive years. Those days are long gone and, in fact, I've never been what one would call 'athletic.' What I'm left with now is a sluggish body that doesn't move as easily as it used to. Nor does it burn calories efficiently, if at all. Nearly everyone puts on a little weight as he or she ages; I'm certainly no exception there.

As a middle-aged, postmenopausal, mostly sedentary woman, my body doesn't respond to regimens of eating and exercising the way younger bodies do. If you – you youngsters out there – hit a plateau, you can try all the suggestions you gave me and something will, most likely, work.

I've tried them, not in the very recent past, but I did last winter, with no success. What I learned is that if I eat more, I gain more weight. If I take an exercise break, I gain more weight. And I'm worse off than if I'd just stayed on the plateau.

Now the down side of staying on the plateau is that it absolutely wrecks my mental and emotional health. And that's where I've been for quite a while now. I'm not sure what to do about it.

I liked Jonathan's suggestion best: He thought I might find some peace if I quit banging my head against the wall and just stopped for a bit. Honestly, though? I don't know how to do that. Whether I eat poorly or well, I'm conscious of making choices and counting things up and dreading the next time I weigh myself. I've been fighting this fight for most of my life.

I don't know how to stop, but oh, how I wish I did. My head is bloody from the beating I've given it. Not to mention the wall.