First of all, I have a confession to make: I DID weigh myself, at some point after starting this blog, despite saying that I really couldn't bear to know.
I did weigh myself, pretty much exactly a week ago, just two days after the "Serious Business" post were I still said I hadn't and wouldn't.
I did step on the scales, and kept the result to myself, because it was just as I had feared - not quite 60 kg, but a solid 59, hovering in between 58.9 and 59.2 as I stood there, shifting around on my feet to see whether that number wouldn't yet, magically, go down.
The good news in the matter, however, is today's revelation: I step on the scales this morning, not even entirely empty, not having been to the bathroom yet, already having had a bit of water - and it tells me 57.1.
I step off and on again, can't believe this stroke of luck.
Seems like the on-off ABC, the exercise, the one day of proper fasting have already done some good.
The bad news is the fact that I still look like a freaking whale of course, unchanged, 2 kg do not make a difference in the monstrously appalling dimensions of my thighs, the not-quite-flat-enough-ness of my belly.
Although I have seen some progress there; since I've started working out properly again, there are already teensy tiny changes and improvements in muscle definition along the legs, the abs.
I even imagine that I am already starting to feel a shift in the monstrosity that is my hips, but that might be wishful thinking entirely.
Still, wishful thinking is what fuels me to go on, and a little bit of a starting enthusiasm never hurts.
On the downside, I did eat today, although I wasn't really hungry - I went on fasting for most of the day and it wasn't even hard, it felt natural and easy.
Still, I was feeling suspicious for some reason, distrustful of my own ability to fast because I hadn't done this in so long.
So as the day wore on, I convinced myself that having a little something to eat would be "safest".
And there I went, eating, and immediately regretting it the second I had swallowed it down. It felt wrong, my high was destroyed, my belly full and my sense of peace and centered calm shattered to a thousand glittering pieces.
I am feeling shitty right now, on the verge of depression, but I will keep it together.
I have learned a valuable lesson; one that I already knew but apparently have to re-learn once more:
That I shouldn't eat when my body isn't even telling me to, that I should trust my body to handle itself and warn me by outrageous hunger or dizziness should the fasting become too much to bear, that I should trust my mind to handle the slightly heightened mental stress of running on empty for a while, that I shouldn't feel compelled to feed them in advance just because I fear they might not be able to deal.
I have learned, as I already knew, that it is very easy for myself to achieve a little happiness through careful fasting, and very easy to completely ruin the mood by eating when I do not need to.
I will try to keep these lessons in mind once again, to ease back into the confidence that I can handle a little hunger, a little silence, a little stillness of the body and mind.
I will try to listen to my instincts next time, to be patient and relaxed instead of nervous, to trust myself and discard the automated voice that insists a human being must have food to survive, and going without it for over 24 hours still feeling no hunger must be unnatural.
(Of course, that voice is technically right - a human DOES need nutrition in the long run, but that is not the point of a fast, and going without it for a few days will not kill you - so I need to shut that voice up for a little bit in order to concentrate on the void inside of me, to let it nourish me, replenish me during some food-free days of peace and silence.)
I hope I didn't ruin my progress too much; on the scale and in my emotional landscape, by tripping up my confidence and breaking the fast.
... and because I don't want this post to be filled with purely negative raving, I'm adding a little something from the "inspirational" department, a lovely fictional being with blue hair and blue tears, by the name of Jill, a creation of formidable genius Enki Bilal.
That image of her seemed to fit the mood of my post, and I'm using it with all due respect and copyright acknowledgement to Monsieur Bilal himself.
I love all of his graphic novels almost equally, but La Trilogie Nikopol was the first of his works I fell in love with, and of course first love lasts a lifetime.
If you haven't read them I can only encourage you to do so; it is worthwhile also to work your way through the French original, even if your French is as poor as mine.
Or, if you want a quick introduction to his world, I recommend the loosely-based movie adaptation Immortel, where Linda Hardy delivers quite a watchable, and incidentally rater skinny performance as Jill.
PS: Don't you just love the ironic juxtaposition created by those last two, completely unrelated panels when you put them together in this fashion?
Yeah, I'm deep like that...
