I Stayed Consistent For a Year

Here's what happened.

When I stopped hitting myself harder than anyone else, started loving my body, started taking care of myself and leaning on people to help me, I got better. I got thinner, my bloodwork markers came back with improved results.

So what is it about consistency that makes such a big difference with weightloss? It can be counterintuitive, because we know the body adapts so it's imperative to change up our workouts so we can continue to reap the benefits, but for actually seeing improvement, building a habit means more than putting ourselves through the wringer.

When you overtrain, your cortisol spikes, your blood sugar goes bonkers, and you feel awful, with sugar spikes, you binge because you don't eat enough. Your body thinks that it needs to hold on to fat and slows your metabolism, what my little sister likes to call a set point.

When you start treating yourself as your best friend, and give yourself advice and care like you would give a best friend, your cortisol lowers, focus improves as trauma brain is a thing, and you start to heal both physically and mentally.

Right now, I'm in a stage of life where I am constantly bombarded by stressors, most pressing of which, my father who has dementia and also is in heart failure. This man is dying, and took me to my surgery under duress, saying right before I got put down for the procedure "You know, HE is supposed to be doing this, not me".

HE is my significant other, not exactly partner who considers himself my husband and I humor him because I love him. Unfortunately, I know I do better on my own than tied down to anyone, and in HIS case, HE is a paraplegic of sorts. A tree fell on him when he was seventeen, doing some awful damage to the nerves in his neck and spine, and now, years later, the man has lost the feeling in his feet. HE can't drive, HE can barely walk after three years of working hard to get him better. So my father tells me right before the scariest moment of my life that I wasn't worth his time because I was someone else's responsibility. How does that help me that day? How does that help me in that moment?

It doesn't. The thing I haven't mentioned about my father is that I suspect he is a covert narcissist. He loves making people squirm, then wonders why he has no long term friends there for him in a tough time. In my case, it has been incredibly hard in my life to be consistent with the trauma this man has created. After his heart attack, I let him live with me for eight months, met him for every doctor's appointments, even missing work to be there, and taking me for surgery was an obligation. He also will not take me to my follow-up. Why? He thinks HE is faking it. By the way, my dad is a retired nurse.

This has truly been the pinnacle of hard times, and I worked out for the first time since surgery yesterday using an arm hoop and resistance bands. It felt incredible, though I am aware I lost muscle already. That's a big part of consistency: you have to keep showing up even when life sets you back. This is a huge set back. I'm tired, I don't feel I deserve to be left to die like I have. I deal with depression every day, and that demon keeps harassing me, telling me that I should self exit. My life has been hard, mostly because of my abusive father and HIM, but HE is making amends, and my father becomes meaner the more he gets closer to death.

And you know, it's okay. I've learned to set boundaries and say no. Back in May he set an ultimatum that I needed to get HIM out of his house in two weeks so I did. I went with HIM, though, because I made a promise to help HIM and get HIM on his feet. Dad wasn't happy. He lost his professional lawn care tech, and as he has realized his streaming services, IT department, phone tech, gofer, and since he has told me multiple times we're not family, daughter, which is significant, because I'm the only one of five children that communicate with him regularly.

The man's an idiot, and he is getting his energy matched. He's dying, and all I wanted to do was spend our last few years going fishing, watching football together (which I care nothing about, just wanted that time with him), and sitting on the porch shooting at solicitors (nod to our fave movie, Secondhand Lions).

It's awful when someone you love betrays you then projects that betrayal on you, but here I am, meeting his energy with the power of an awakened empath, and oh my gosh how wonderful it is going to be when all this hard work and consistency pays off. If you set no other goal this week, just try to be consistent. You got this!