Mr. Yay vs. Mr. Yuk

(Am I the only one whose mother put Mr. Yuk stickers all over everything when I was a kid? No idea. Follow the link if you are one of those who has no idea what I'm talking about. Anyway...)

I figured something out last night: I approach new things differently depending on how much I like them.

Yeah, I know, duh, but I hadn't worked that one through all the way before. If I'm iffy on how much I like something, or even don't like it at all, then I go very, very slowly, testing my way and only grudgingly admitting that I may at some point move on to the next level. If I like something a lot, I am impatient, and look at everything as a small step on the way to something larger, and I'm pretty much bouncing all over the place because I want more, more, more.

Thing is, I have often treated weight loss and healthy living as if they were option B, when I just want MORE MORE MORE, and the sad fact of the matter is that I have been treating it that way based on my opinion of the end result, not on my opinion of the process. I am very much in favor of being in shape and fitting into my skinny clothes: that idea gets a big thumbs-up from me. The actual doing, though, I'm less enthusiastic about. It does pain me to say that, but denial of the fact just leaves me open to getting clobbered whenever I need comfort and I just do not want to do something that I don't like that much.

I can do stuff that I'm iffy on, or really not thrilled about, and learn to love them. I have done it with many foods; I've done it with many hobbies. I just take a different approach, a slower approach, and treat it as though each baby-step might be the last. It's like my head is threatening this new thing, telling it to behave or so help me I am going no further, no thank you.

Once upon a time I was puzzling over how to treat these baby steps each as an end to themselves, instead of mentally jumping ahead to the end. I think that admitting that I've had a sort of split opinion about weight loss-- liking the results very very much but sort of "ehh" on the process-- might be the key to that. It's a thought.

On that note, there are more baby steps afoot. I've given up soda (yup, even diet), alcohol, and chips for the month. Soda because it's more costly than water, not as good for me, and because it sort of acts as an enabler for mindless eating; alcohol because it's much more costly than water, definitely not good for me, and not only acts as an enabler for mindless eating but, if I get drunk and there's pizza around, God help us all because I will eat half the pizza and then be bloated and ill and drunk. Chips because they cost money and are the subject of much mindless eating. Really, if I want the crunchy, I'll make popcorn.

I'm also off coffee, but that's because I am trying to catch up on my sleep deficit and I'm avoiding the caffeine. I slept for ten hours straight on both Thursday night and Friday night, and I'm making it a priority to schedule nine hours of in-bed time every night this week. I am tired of being tired, you know?

My Hub continues in his deep love for the exercise bike. He went for a solid hour on it the other day, while playing a video game. An hour. He was huffing and puffing and sweating like mad, but he noticed that he was doing better than he had been. Remember that we've only had this thing for a week as of today, so he's had only seven sessions on it. A noticable difference in cardio in seven days. Not bad!

I'm still chugging along, and my legs are getting stronger; I've got enough oomph going now to start challenging myself. Hooray!

I'm tentatively scheduling the return of Hub-and-me jogging for Memorial Day. Everything I've read indicates that while jogging is better for weight loss, biking is better for improving cardio, and so we're currently figuring that if we can improve our cardio this month, then by June we ought to be able to try jogging again without dying. (Hopefully it will have stopped raining all the damn time by that point, too.)

My Hub has made it his mission in life to use everything in the produce box every week. I'd suggested that maybe we ought to give up the produce box for a while, and he flatly rejected that because he really, really likes the organic produce, he likes the variety, and he likes that little store. I never saw this one coming, but it's just another one of the wonderful things about my Hub putting his whole health thing together.

That's the other thing, and I need to remember it: my Hub is going at this slowly, and suspiciously, and once he has something tackled he keeps at it. Since I'm back at square one, I ought to do the same thing-- and hopefully we can keep moving on slowly together, evolving a healthy lifestyle between the two of us. Pretty cool.