Diet

I've actually been focused on losing weight with calorie counting lately. Not something I love to do; in fact, I can't remember ever doing it this long before because I dislike it so much. But there's something different about it this time. I've already reduced my food options so much with trying to avoid "natural flavors" that it isn't nearly as much of a burden as it used to be to track those calories. 

I'm seeing some weight loss, though nothing significant yet, just over a month in. That makes sense to me, because I know that weight loss is not linear. Our bodies do respond like perfect automata to the stimuli that we give it. That has to be in part because there are parts of that digestion cycle that we not only don't have access to influence, but don't even completely understand. Science around the microbiome is still in its infancy, but we know it matters. 

It can be hard to stay positive, but, as Ambrose said, our bodies are our allies in this fight. We shouldn't get mad at them because we don't understand why our weight is up, despite diligent calorie counting. We might look at other things, like macro ratios, if we get super frustrated, but I know that I need to especially be prepared for a gain of about 5 pounds around my period. It's almost not fair that men don't have that cycle to be able to see when their hormones are out of whack. Men cycle, they just don't get the red flag of warning. 

I had a thought that, if our bodies are our allies, then what exactly is the enemy against which we are aligned? My first answer was despair. Doubt. We must fight with our bodies against the idea that nothing we do actually makes a difference. Fight to stay the course. Fight to remain calm as we are buffeted by the waters of the rushing river of life. 

I talk to my body. I ask it to try and become the shape that I'm asking it to be. To try and lose the weight that it (and I) have clung to since high school. To show off the muscles we've built at CrossFit. To lower our base weight for backpacking.