I am having a fat day. A very fat day. I even ate some chocolate, which didn’t help at all.

I’ve started reading Body Sacred by Dianne Sylvan, a book about women’s relationship with their bodies from a Wiccan point of view. Ms. Sylvan makes it clear that she is a big woman, but that she is making excellent progress towards feeling good about herself even if “skinny bitches” laugh at her when she is eating ice cream. I wanted to cheer for her. I’m overweight, at 175lbs and 5’2″ tall, but I’m lucky enough to have some fabulous curves that help to disguise the weight. But there are times when I get dirty looks from skinny fashionistas when I am trying to enjoy a treat like a fast food lunch. It hurts more than a skinny person can imagine, and it does a lot to squash someone’s self-esteem.

The world is full of messages telling us that thinner is better, and I have to admit that I have fallen under the sway to some extent. Some days I would give anything to be 110lbs and 5’8″, but I’m not and I never will be. Being a fashion model isn’t important to me, but being healthy and comfortable in my body is. My new exercise program is helping me to reach those goals, and making me aware of the Goddess that truly does live within me… and within those skinny bitches too.

Today I started my new fitness routine using Yourself!Fitness. And, oh my goddess!, am I ever out of shape!! I barely made it through my 15 minute work-out, and here I thought I would be able to handle 30 minutes! And jumping jacks, let me tell you that they are not a friend of well endowed women. If you know what I mean. 😉

Seriously though, as I continue to say, I am very surprised by how unhealthy I have let myself become. Doesn’t the Rede say “An it harm none, do as thou will”? Well, letting myself become so unhealthy is surely harmful, and it is well past time to undo that harm. I really like Yourself!Fitness, even though it has reinforced the fact that I am horribly uncoordinated. The “virtual fitness trainer” Maya is friend and encouraging, and I am pretty certain she is not snickering at me because I keep getting the movement wrong. (The same can’t be said for my evil cat Isis, who I’m sure was laughing herself silly as she smugly watch on.) I certainly hope this program will be just what I have needed to get me motivated.

I often feel like I am a creature of my mind, and that my body is here only to drag my brain and soul around. Or rather, my brain drags my body around. It seems as if everything I do is tied to thinking, and very little is tied to being. I will occasionally think about starting some body-oriented routine, like meditation or exercise, but it is very soon replaced with more brain-oriented tasks like reading or writing.

Thinking about it (my brain again), I’m actually disappointed in myself. When I do work with my body, like at physiotherapy, I feel good. The exercise and putting my body right makes my brain feel better too. For such a brain centered person, you’d think that would be enough to get me to pay attention to my body. Perhaps, and perhaps not. I need to do something though, so that my brain isn’t all that I am left with.

Yesterday I signed up for the Change Your Life Challenge. It is a seventy-day program aimed at helping women organize their lives and find more time for self-nurturing. I may be working from home now, but that doesn’t mean that life become a lot more organized. As I said the other day, I can take some time now to slow down when I need to. But paper just seems to be piling up, and up…

I was doing pretty well when I was keeping a to do list, but when I stopped, then things started to get out of hand. Maybe the problem is that I am trying to hard.

In social situations, I am a very quiet person. If I open my mouth to say something, than that general means I’ve thought hard about it and feel that it is important to share. (This doesn’t apply when I’m talking to quanta or my parents. I’m still quiet, but I say any old thing that pops into my head.) I get so very annoyed when I final try to say something and everyone keeps talking over me. It seems so unfair.

Yesterday morning I attended a meeting for the contract work that I am doing. This was the first real business meeting I had ever been too, and it was awful. In seven hours, we made almost no headway. This was another situation where I felt like I hardly got a chance to say anything. I wish I knew how I could make myself heard, not just in business meetings but in all social situations.

I am tired of making what Jennifer Louden calls “criminal promises”. These are promises that you make to yourself even though you know you will never keep them. My biggest criminal promise is that I will go on a diet. I don’t think I will ever go on a real diet. Instead, I need to promise myself I will exercise and eat mindfully, which is something very different.

With that in mind, I recently ordered the Yourself!Fitness program for my Playstation 2. The shipping time given was unbelievable slow given I had to pay for UPS, but I am counting the days until it arrives. I even want to pick up a step and a heartrate monitor to be extra ready.