Will I Ever Be Satisfied?

I started this blog with the intent to spread awareness and advocacy about food noise, medical weight loss, and obesity as a disease. How real it all is. How if you've never experienced any of it, you don't understand it.

In recent months, I've experienced an internal shift. I've become OBSESSED with weight loss, numbers, and fitness. I don't experience food noise anymore, but I am so wanting to reach the next milestone. To hit that one-mile PR. I've lost 86 pounds, but I want to get to 90. I work out for 40, 45, 50 minutes a day, but I need to work out for an hour, in case I end up eating more calories than I intended. I've plateaued... why?! What am I doing wrong?

I'm really going to be vulnerable here and admit that while I feel worlds better about myself since losing 86 pounds... I still need validation. For 20+ years of my life, academic validation was enough. But now, numbers on the scale are the validation. Comments and likes and reposts are the validation. Shaving two whole minutes off my 5K, or lifting 10-pound weights instead of five-pound weights, is the validation. Checking calorie calculators all day to figure out how few I've actually had, is the validation. Earning Apple Fitness awards and Strava virtual trophies are the validation. I'm adding up calories like I used to calculate my potential GPA. What can I say -- I'm an overachiever.

My therapist will probably read this post and worry (thanks, Colleen, for reading EVERY post, you're absolutely a real one). I am so uncomfortable even writing about any of this, because it's not perfectly curated and positive. But don't worry -- we had a good session this week talking about obsessive exercising. The hard part of that conversation is that at this point, I don't think I want to change my approach to exercise right now. I spent so many years out of shape, that I can't help but embrace what being in shape feels like.

That said, the next goal, for my own sanity, needs to be getting back to embracing what I've done. I've spoken about body dysmorphia before, yes -- but these feelings truly aren't about body dysmorphia. They're about -- to quote a certain musical I know many of you know and love as I do -- how I'll never be satisfied. That mantra doesn't only apply to weight loss and fitness in my life; it is a theme that has followed me since I was a child.

However, that's not to say I can't have goals. But I've been spending too much time watching reality shows where folks lose weight at twice the rate I'm losing it. The extreme measures I talked about on "The Biggest Loser" were never how I wanted to go about this process. Everything in moderation, save for the foods that truly don't make me feel good, is still how I want to proceed.

I want to get back to enjoying my life and not feeling as though I can only enjoy if I'm also achieving at the same time (whether those achievements are in the realms of weight loss or fitness, or at work, or in performing, or in local politics, or at church). But there's some fear involved here too. Part of me is scared that I'll take my foot off the gas. In the past, when I'd lost a certain amount of weight, I'd tell myself that I was "done." Now, I'm scared that those feelings will have a repeat performance. And as such, I won't skip a workout, even if I'm tired. I wonder if rest and relaxation is actually what I need right now, instead of "lock-in" rhetoric and obsession. I also understand how my mind works -- and that some of that goal-oriented obsession is nothing more than how I'm made. As long as I'm not hurting myself, I truly believe that it's not all bad. But I also need to believe that I'm allowed to revel in what I've done to this point without always asking, "what's next?" That point applies to fitness, but it also applies to all of those other aforementioned aspects of my life.

I've recently experienced months of achievements related to weight loss and fitness, but also to other areas of my supremely busy life. I lost 86 pounds. I ran my first mile race, running the entire mile consecutively and set a PR of 12:49. My original play premiered over Labor Day weekend. I've taken on the role of Public Relations Director of the Glen Cove Young Democrats. We are in full-on campaign season in Glen Cove, I completed a virtual 5K this past week and set a new 5K PR, I have two more virtual 5Ks coming up and one in-person in October, choir season is beginning at church, and then there's the full slate of milestones coming all through the fall for people I love. I should be thrilled.

The current climate of the world is not helping my mood, but that's not all that's going on here. Recently I came across an Instagram post that called out people who don't celebrate their accomplishments because we always believed we were "supposed" to achieve them. That thought process is often at play. I wonder if folks are sick of me yet on social media, but posting the highlight reel (and sometimes admitting the mistakes of the "before times") are reminders that these highlights are, indeed, accomplishments. Don't ask me how many nights I scroll my own Instagram page just to look back at accomplishments of all types.

Maybe one day I won't be so obsessed with achievement, but that day definitely isn't today. At the same time... actually giving myself credit is an important part of this self-esteem that I'm working so hard to develop.