My voice hasn’t been present here for a few reasons, one being the sudden and wretched loss of my computer. I still await its return and use a feeble hobbling old computer for limited online activity.
To tell you another reason involves reluctantly revealing the fact that I am on a diet. Yes, for me, a dreaded reality because I have tried to avoid succumbing to behaviors that I do not think are healthy – such as focusing on deprivation and being skinny. I have spent years now trying to undo the mind-warping concepts of women’s beauty in our culture and trying to accept myself unconditionally. The inner critic given the opportunity will try to drown out all semblances of self-acceptance. I have tried to focus on building healthy habits in terms of exercise, eating and stress-management. To some degree it feels like a failure to be “on a diet.”
However, being overweight developed from 10 plus years of health problems and injuries. Once you end up on that road it becomes a downward cycle, especially when you have a hard time getting the proper diagnoses and treatment. Then just as I reached a certain level of wellness and tried to get back to actively exercising, I developed a chronic foot injury after which my weight gain doubled. There was tons of stress which also helps you to store fat and ironically more fat produces more stress hormones so on it goes. When I was on vacation, the extra walking and standing aggravated my foot injury. With my return to work and school, I realized that adequate focus on healthy cooking wasn’t realistic. In order to be able to increase my exercise, I would need to make some significant progress on getting my weight back down to normal.