When I shared my physical fitness goals with my closest friends at the beginning of the year, I didn’t fail to sarcastically emphasize that I was only doing this for looks. I said loud and clear to anyone willing to hear my bullshit that I am doing this because I want to wear scandalous dresses. Yes, I know that regardless of my looks, I can wear whatever I want – #bodypositivity blah blah blah… In fact, I bought a copy of Steven Bartlett’s Happy Sexy Millionaire – ignoring the other half of the book’s title. I will rate that book 2/3 because I am not a Millionaire yet, but I am happier and feel sexier.
Ignore the fact that I am a lazy ass who doesn’t care to wear make-up; neither do I buy clothes that need ironing nor clean any of my all-black shoes before getting out of the house. In what world was I fooling myself to think I would try to wear a scandalous dress? I could have lost this weight because my doctor advised so, or that I panted like a horse after a few flights of stairs, or simply to have healthy eating and exercise habits. Yet, of all the reasons I could have picked to lose weight, looking like a cane in a naked dress was my first choice. But the truth is, for the past 3-4 years that I have been on this fit fam journey, those “serious reasons” never motivated me enough. Instead, they gave me more room for excuses. When I weighed XXX pounds, I told myself that it wasn’t as bad as weighing XXX (insert a higher number). Then, when I saw that higher number on the scale, I added more and said, at least I am not XXX. At some point, I was so ridiculous in my delusion that I would unashamedly ensure that I took my shoes, socks, and any extra-weighted clothing or jewelry off so that the scale could capture “my actual body size.” Of course, that delusion backfired when I couldn’t strip at the doctor’s office before they took my measurement. My mantra was, “Na fat, I fat, I no kill person,” as I licked another cone of Haggen Dazs’ Strawberry Butter Cookie ice cream as dinner. My other slogan was that every Uber Eats order I placed was simply helping the economy. My best valid excuse was when a loved one purchased an expensive indoor stair stepper I asked for, as a birthday gift. In my attempt to prove my righteous use of the toy, imagining I could shed off my poor habits within a week, I over-did it! I ended up spraining my lower back and being unable to exercise for the entire month due to my “delulu.” Unlike other people who share having a moment that transformed their realization – it was not the case for me. So many times in the past 3-4 years, I have been waiting for that moment, that new year, new month, new week, new Monday, new day to come – it never quite did, and even when it did, I slowly found myself returning to my poor habits after a couple of days. What eventually started this sustainable journey wasn’t any serious, conscious, or intentional and good choices. Those came after. In the last quarter of 2023, after my doctor’s stern warning about the effects of my poor eating and exercise habits, I decided out of some stupid spite that I would exercise consistently for a month – just so that I could say I did, and quote my average number of exercise days when next she asked. When I showed up for the next appointment in November, I enthusiastically said I exercised for X number of days on average in the past months; still, nothing changed in my test records. Instead of being disappointed, she was proud of me and said that was a good start. She continued encouraging me by saying that I had a lesser chance of failing and returning to poor habits if I changed just one thing at a time and practiced it for long enough. So, if all I could commit to right now was exercising and I wasn’t ready to change what I ate, that’s alright. At that moment, it hit me – what I had been doing wrong all these years. I had been trying to change too much at once. It was also a defining and circling realization – that I would see more improvement in certain areas of my life if I didn’t try to pursue everything at once and now. So, for the rest of November, I decided that regardless of my terrible eating habits, I would exercise as much as my body would allow and rest as I could. Then, when January came, I decided to add a few new guides to my book, such as no Uber Eats, no sweets, and removing the foods I knew made me bloated. This isn’t to say I had a complete month without anything I said I would no longer eat, but I could now consciously count the few times I did – maybe once or twice. I conquered the temptation of placing Uber Eats orders by pre-spending all my extra money to pay year-long subscriptions for anything on my budget. That way, I wouldn't buy rubbish if I was already broke for the month. Day after day, as the month wrapped up, I saw on the scale what I hadn’t seen in a long time – the weight being lost. What honestly began as a genuine desire to be able to take thirst trap pictures in scandalous clothing ended up turning into a teachable moment and an ultimate truth; I just wanted to give myself irrefutable proof that I was not incapable of changing my life if I wanted to. I saw how I was not a victim of my life and choices. I also got the confidence that if I did gain the weight back for any reason beyond my control, I knew how to get myself back on track – not just the exercises or the food but the motivation and sustainability of my choices. It taught me to not take the privilege of my life somewhat co-being in my hands for granted. I became more grateful to God that I could afford to buy healthy groceries and fruits, cook at home, wake up, and move my body. A note of transparency and hindsight: Before you use what I’ve written as a yardstick for your life, this is an update on my experience. I wrote this blog post sometime in early February. However, I didn’t post it then because I wanted to put myself through the test of time and see what would change in my experience or perspective in a few months. As the heaviness of the year kicked in, I slowed down with all the goals I set around my fitness and eventually stopped in April because I couldn’t keep up with everything that was a priority at the moment – grad school, my full-time job, my thesis (in the final stages with this!) and managing my company. It was simply too much, and speaking to my therapist, I learned to accept this reality with the understanding that a better time will come this year when my fitness goals can be a sustainable priority – in this case, it’s when I graduate next month and finish up my book. The consequence of slowing down and stopping was gaining half the weight I initially lost. So, in hindsight, what I should have added to this piece was this – part of the human experience is knowing when time and chance are priorities in the things we need to accomplish. So, give yourself grace as required! It’s pleasantly humiliating to admit how much difference a simple principle of effort and choice can make. I will humbly apply this lesson to the other areas of my life as I navigate the next quarter of the year. What I hope you will learn from my experience is this… if you have been struggling to start this year right, it never hurts to meet yourself where you are with a bit of humor and a truckload of compassion, keeping in mind that taking off or adding one more step could make a lot of difference. I sometimes can’t believe that the shallow admission of wanting to become a Happy, Sexy Millionaire would be the thing that would genuinely start this year differently for me. The full title of that book is Happy Sexy Millionaire: Unexpected Truths about Fulfillment, Love, and Success by Steven Bartlett. I highly recommend it alongside his latest book, Diary of a CEO! It's the new year… and in the pressure of doing a 2023 reflection, I want to write about how that year began with me starting a new job only to get laid off for the first time in my life, 2 months later. I want to describe how I cried for 3 days straight until my eyes looked like tiny lips. I want to write about how I met with my therapist with the hope of getting a bandage to slap on this wound in my heart, and all she told me to do was sit with my sadness. That felt brutal, and I was even angrier. I didn't spend my potentially last therapy session that insurance would cover for someone to tell me to sit with my misery. It reminds me of a video I came across of a man who lost his mother, and he said the best advice he received when he felt like he was losing his mind was this: Go crazy if you need to, but come back when you're ready.
It is a new year… and the pressure of writing a defined 2024 resolution as I have done for most of my conscious years is here again. I want to write about how I want to make X and do Y and how they must all be done this year. However, the deep reflections I was forced to do last year made me conclude confidently that one of my first failures with resolutions was my lack of honesty that they didn't work for me. When I trace back to the first pressures of creating a New Year’s resolution, I remember church. As a Nigerian Christian, it has always been the norm to go to church on the 25th and sing the Christmas carol songs we sang the last year and the previous. It is the norm to attend "Crossover night" on December 31st to cast the devil off the new year. It is tradition that on the first Sunday, the pastor will preach about setting goals and ask you to submit the top 5 things you want God to do for the year. They will also tell you in conviction that God said this is our year of XYZ! Growing up and sticking my curious nose in places it didn’t belong, I observed this happen a few times… someone achieving a great thing and disappearing from the public eye – not necessarily for a negative reason but the loss of desire to be seen and noticed. When aunties or older relatives would mention someone and say, “O to jo meta ti a ti ri Lagbaja,” meaning it has been a while since we saw so and so, I knew there was a gist about someone who pulled a Houdini on them. If it wasn’t marriage, it was childbirth, relocation to a different country, pursuing a higher degree – something worth congratulating that raised alarm about their disappearance. It was almost as though the better people’s lives became, the higher the expectation of visibility by people who know them. Even some of our favorite musicians like Sade and Lagbaja have done this so masterfully and refused to return to the spotlight despite our nostalgia.
The first time I experienced this happen to a peer was at church – a very noticeable young lady who got engaged. Of course, the natural shenanigans of recording and posting a beautiful video of the proposal on all social media platforms happened. Then she got married and went quiet; her social media handles eventually disappeared. She is still alive and well, but that sudden erasure terrified me because of how much we value online presence and correlate it to being alive and doing well. Worse, the former feminist in my head imagined all sorts of ways this had to be a women’s issue until I experienced a male friend do the same. |