Welcome to Class, Fat

Quick, solve this problem:

Solve the trigonometric equation given by

sin(x) + sin(x/2) = 0 for 0 ≤ x ≤ 2 pi


Bahahahaha, I have no idea what this means! I use to know at some point. I know, right? I just shocked the blue off of your jeans. When I was in school, I was really good at math, but only the math in which was I was enrolled. I knew Algebra only in Algebra, Geometry only in Geometry, and Calculus only in Neverland. If you asked me a week into summer about a math problem, I'd say, "Je ne parle pas Englais." It amazes me the stuff that I can forget when it goes unpracticed. As you can see by my mad linguistic skills above, I use to be bangin' in the French department; I took it for ten years!!!! The last four years was because college made me. I never understood why if I was majoring in English Education, I had to take four years of a foreign language. I guess to make me appreciate our language even more, or they had a plan to make Madame Larmon retire early. Bless that poor woman. I was a straight up French speaking flibbertigibbet. The one thing I did master quickly was, "Je voudrais de assistance maintenau, sil vous plait." (Everything in there is close to being spelled wrong.) I'm sure you can see that I am saying, "I would like some help now, please." My other two favorite things to say when asked a question was, "Je n'sais pas" (I don't know) or "pomme de terre" (potato). Again, this skill went unpracticed, and aye me, I have forgotten it. Not that knowing French right now could help me in Korea, but it would be fun to take that language on a test drive here. If I took everything that I knew at one point in my life and put it back into my brain, I'd gain the respect of Tony Stark. The Most Interesting Man in the World would create word quips about me that I would spat upon because they'd be feeble-minded attempts to capture my brilliance and poise. 


Knowledge isn't the only thing that ski-daddles when it just sits on a shelf. Nope, knowledge has a best friend called ability. I will randomly do my splits just to make sure that I can do them. For some reason, I do not want to lose that ability, so I'm like WHA-BAM, split. I see that I can still do it, I smile in my own little spotlight, then I stand to retrieve ice from the kitchen to numb what ever tendons I just tore in two. I'll spend the next two days using handicap bathrooms and taking one stair at a time, but hey, I can still do my splits. Now, it wouldn't be near as dramatic if I practiced them everyday like I did when I was an active dancer....which wasn't yesterday as much as I think that it is. But why would I practice that? Why would I take the time out of my day to sharpen an ability that leads to nothing productive? Why not? Practice makes perfect, right? And what's wrong with a little perfection.


I see this pattern with my weight and my fitness goals. Did you know that I have had this blog for an entire year? Did you realize that I am quickly approaching my one year anniversary of leaving the states? If you went back and read my blog posts for this past year, you'd see that I'm a repeat offender. They all start off with something like, "I hate my fat; I hate that she's skinny; let me workout like a fiend...uh oh...Kit Kat attack!!!" Anyone could read these posts and just get annoyed; heck, I get annoyed, and I'm me. My problem is that I've spent a year legitimately out of practice. I know I've hinted here and I've planned there, but truth be told, I'm out of healthy living mode.


The problem with once having lost a bunch of weight and becoming a gorgeous piece of human perfection is that we think we know the solution to having that success again. We've done it once, and we know it all; however, that sneaky little "unpracticed = unknowing" law took place, and we didn't realize it.  For instance, I was most successful with Weight Watchers; I think this is the best diet plan in the world. It taught me so much, and I went from uhhhhh to whoa in a matter of weeks. When I try to do that diet again, I flib up the whole thing because I think I know it all, and I'm not being truthful to myself or my gut. I think that if I'm not eating chicken and broccoli, that I can just eat whatever I want because those are the only two things I can eat to be on track. The same year I was most successful with that diet was the year that I started working out, and I taught myself how to run. Now, I have it embedded into my brain that my workouts need to be structured a certain way for me to have results. I want to only do what I did then. I ran four to five miles everyday, now I think that if my run is anything less than four miles, it's not worth the effort and goes undone. This causes me to skip workouts that might be different because I think they can't possibly give me any results. Don't you know that sitting on the couch and venting on the computer is so much more productive than doing a physical activity????


I can't solve that math problem at the top of the screen; if you can, good for you. I'll write a haiku in your honor. I can't speak anymore French than what I've already shown you. I have two scars on my left leg from riding a bike for the first time after ten plus years of not being on one. I have forgotten these things, but it doesn't mean that I can't relearn them. It would be difficult, or possibly painful at first, but it would be familiar, and then soon, it would be knowledge, and then it would return to it's status as ability, but instead of ditching it at that point, hopefully it would go from ability to habit.


I need to relearn how to be healthy. I need to act like I've never worked out before, I've never counted a calorie before, I've never reached a goal before, I've never given it my all before...I need to start from the beginning. I don't need to compare it to a past experience because it really won't compare. I'll never be able to ride a bike like I did when I was seven, and I'm okay with that. I'm older, my body is different, my butt can't stand the pain of the bike seat, and I have a different mindset, and that is all okay. I won't have a weight loss story like I did when I was twenty-three. I'm literally going to start over and hang up my "know it all" status. Instead of thinking that it has to do with "eating only these meals" or "running this many miles" I'm going to reteach my body what it wants and what it can do. I can tell you that my weight loss story/healthy living journey at twenty-seven is going to be epic.