Date: September 13th, 2010
As a general rule, I prefer dieting alone. I have come to realize that this is probably self-defeating behavior. See, I don't like other people knowing my weight (who does) and I'm not a fan of people knowing when I mess up; though a full year of being a beginner at everything is helping rid me of that concern. In any case, the main reason I generally exercised and dieted alone was that when I inevitably messed up, there was no one there to judge me. Yeah, I know, mildly embarrassing to admit, but what good is a year of self-reflection if not to examine traits like this?
What I realized a couple days ago is that I never had a particular reason to diet before. One of the old sayings about diets goes that you need to hate your body more than you love food. That axiom vastly underestimates the extent to which I adore, nay, worship at the alter of bacon. More than that, I've always been a confident person despite not being, ya know, a looker. So I never had that momentary feeling of worthlessness that made me proud put down the fries and declare myself a slave to food no more.
Recently, I realized that I do have a reason to diet. A big one. One of the many places I'm applying to work is with the Judge Advocate General. You know how, when you're applying to school, there are stretch schools and safety schools? Well, JAG is one of my stretch schools. Its also an area of legal practice that I find incredibly interesting and fulfilling and that I would be insanely giddy to get a chance at. As I started to put together my applications for law firms, clerkships, fellowships and JAG, I ran into a wall I never expected. JAG has a fitness requirement.
Who'd have thunk it? I certainly didn't. But it became the clearest motivator I've ever had. I can be a clerk without being a looker. I can have a fellowship without being able to pull off a micro-mini and a tank top (in fact, its probably better that way). But even if I have a stellar interview, wow the military-grade socks off the recruiters and prove myself utterly and completely worthy of the job; I still can't work there if I'm out-of-shape.
So I bit the embarrassment bullet and signed myself up on a site called FatSecret. There are tons of fitness challenges, weigh-ins, recipe sharing and other nifty tools to guilt and shame our collective fatness into collective fitness. Hopefully that works, because even now, before its an issue, I can tell what kind of shame I will feel if I lose an incredible opportunity over a cheeseburger and fries.
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