It's April in the midwest. Flowers are blooming, trees are pollinating, allergy sufferers are miserable, and I am at an annual crossroads in my life. This is the point in time where we are about six weeks out from pool season, and a decision has to be made. A lifestyle-altering decision. Do I continue my obsessive and destructive love affair with The Chocolate, or cease the affair to reconnect with my faithful summer love of twenty-five years, The Bikini?
If you don't dig chocolate, and you haven't worn a bikini in your life, this blog entry probably ain't for you. But for those of you whose pulse rate spikes when you open a Whitman's Sampler (ahhh, you can smell it right now, can't you?), and for those who have committed to memory the first rule of the Bikini Code (a bikini is a privilege, and not a right), you are feelin' me big time right now.
I admit, the loooong KC winter of 2013 found me much more seduced by the siren call of Hershey, Cadbury, Dove and Rocher (kind of sounds like a yummy law firm, don't you think?) than I normally am. I can't help it. I get seriously bummed out by cold weather, and hey, chocolate makes me feel goooooood. So if one piece makes me feel gooooood, fifteen make me feel friggin' awesome! Shut up. We all have our addictions. I'm getting to the part where I turn the corner on mine, just hang on.
So around this time of year, I am forced to reintroduce myself to my body-mind psychotherapist. She lives in my full-length mirror in my bedroom. She makes me come to therapy in my underwear, and it's kind of weird because she comes in her underwear too, but whatever, she's the one in charge here.
And then we have a frank conversation about how this love affair is controlling my life, it's no good for me, I'm not who I once was, I'm avoiding people who care about me just so I can spend more time in it. It's not pretty. Eyes are opened, tears are shed, and a new resolve is born to do what needs to be done to cut the ties of this affair and reconnect with the faithful love, The Bikini.
Now everybody who has a modicum of Body Awareness knows that you cannot jump straight from breaking the chains of The Chocolate back into The Bikini. No, no, no, no, no. Remember Rule #1 of the Bikini Code. I wish more people had Rule #1 tattooed across their should-not-be-exposed-in-public midriff, but I digress.
I have to EARN my way back into the bikini. Yes, I teach yoga twice a week, run at least two days a week, yada, yada, yada. But weight gain and loss is simple math.
Calories in = Calories burned = Bikini Ready At All Times.
Calories in > Calories burned = You Got Some Work to do, Dough Girl
So I add another workout day of intense cardio/muscle work and start saying my goodbyes. To sugar and other white foods, dairy, carbonated beverages and all the other delicious delights who stand between me and The Bikini. Now I do have a bit of each from time to time. Going cold turkey takes me to a place of insanity that causes my family to force me out of the car and onto the shoulder of I-70 somewhere between KC and Lawrence.
I have never been, nor could I ever be a gluten-free vegan. Meat, good. Dough, good. Sheridan's Royal Turtle sundae, majestic. But for the purpose of honoring The Bikini, all of those things take a back seat until the glorious day when I can stand in front of my therapist in The Bikini, and she will proudly say to me, "My work here is done". Until next spring when the cycle repeats itself.
So if we cross paths in the next six weeks, and I seem a little less sparkly, please be kind and understanding that I am in limbo between my happy place with The Chocolate and the self-satisfaction of having earned my way back into The Bikini. Raise a low-cal protein smoothie in solidarity with me, and together, I promise we will make it through. Until then...
Sparkly Kisses,
D
