Petra Day 37 Letter to Women
1672 words that are worth it…
Another post that I tried to put off for as long as possible, and not without reason. I wanted every woman who reads this to truly feel inspired to change her life, her body, and her attitude towards herself. (though I don't think it would help)
In the past few weeks, I've received a lot of positive feedback about my changing figure, and strangely, 90% of it has been from women. The example of past centuries has shown that we women can be terribly envious of each other, often using the principle of "either say something bad or nothing at all" when we gossip, whisper, or just grimace and eye each other up. This will never change, though perhaps the number of people who do this might decrease. The secret might be the following. (I say "might" because I have no other example before me, only my own)
The path to change is to put our own values in order and place ourselves in the world exactly where we belong. Not where we think we belong (I'm fat and that's it, that's my destiny). I used to think exactly that, but NO. We must accept that there will always be someone more beautiful, better, prettier than us, and we cannot change that. We can only compete with ourselves. By this, I mean that it's useless for me to want to be 180 cm tall with gazelle legs and a wasp waist if it's genetically impossible. But the moment I go to bed every night feeling like I've made the most of myself, I will never once sigh when I see a fragile girl with a tiny, perfect bottom, thinking, "I wish I could be like that..."
Forget about it!!
I will never have a similar build because my bone structure is completely different, because I am 163 cm tall, but that doesn't mean I should hide behind that and instead cast an envious, disdainful glance at her while thinking,
"It was only hard for her to be born, and she probably devours Big Macs at McDonald's, and neither time nor carbohydrates affect her."
Who cares!! She's simply pretty, and that's it! It's precisely because of these thoughts that many of us end up where I was a few months ago…
...thinking that since we can't have that, we should just give up and not even try, but instead eat two slices of cake in our sadness. I know perfectly well that even at 55 kg (competition weight + one kg) I won't be thin. I wasn't even thin at 17 when I lost weight to 54 kg. I accept this, and I'm mentally preparing for it. There's no other way; we must be aware of ourselves and our physical limitations, but I emphasize again, this doesn't mean we resign ourselves to our fate, but rather that we do the most for ourselves and shape our bodies (and thereby our souls too) in the best way for them.
How do we know?
Let's pay attention to it, live in harmony with it, and we will notice what the "little one" needs. For me, nutrition has currently come to the forefront; I consciously observe my body's reaction at all times of the day. I don't panic if I feel a slight hunger-like sensation and haven't had my snack yet; I wait (at the beginning, I literally experienced every moment of my diet as a drama). I wait for the right moment when I feel the food will taste the best. This also doesn't mean I starve myself until I feel sick. I dare say that in the last 2 weeks, I haven't been hungry once, yet I was able to wait for the right moment when that chicken and rice, which I've been eating in the exact same quantity and prepared in the same way for over 30 days, tastes good. I also know when it's enough for it. In the past, whatever was put in front of me, I ate, regardless of whether 3 men would have been full with that portion. This morning, for example, I could eat muesli with banana + protein shake.
Already last night, when I went to bed, I was looking forward to the morning, because as Tomi said, "Petra, this is your treat." So, on my "treat" morning, no matter how much I craved it, I couldn't eat it all, nor did I want to, even though normally, what do we do then? Finally, a treat and it's allowed, we eat until we feel sick. We feel sick because our body is overwhelmed; it doesn't want it. Our brain, on the other hand, wants it even more.
We say afterwards: "my eyes just wanted it"
We women are capable of this, just as we are capable of celebrating the x kg of excess weight that suddenly dropped off after a 10-day diet with gummy bears and chocolate, as well-deserved. (Right??) J Well, after a long time, I've finally reached the point where there's always something left on my plate from one of my 5 meals. I never skip a meal. I can't feel hungry, because that means my body is panicking, it's not getting something. I don't necessarily eat everything on the menu; if there's leftovers, there's leftovers, but I attack all 5 meals a day. So girls, going back to the self-esteem crisis, no one should think that getting our 26,000th tattoo or getting our ears pierced 3 times also counts as change. Of course, that's part of it, but it's not enough.
The example is no coincidence.
I have a distant acquaintance on Facebook who has been over 100 kg for years, but every year new photos of her new tattoos appear on her page, and everyone furiously likes them. I always wondered if this was just a way for her to get attention or a displacement activity, and what would happen when she ran out of space on her body and had nothing left to show. Perhaps then she would realize that she could change herself in other ways? Don't misunderstand me, there's nothing wrong with tattoos; I have a small one too, and perhaps I thought similarly when I got it. I don't want to sound overly wise, but believe me, if we finally accept ourselves by "working on ourselves," a new world will open up to us. I am now experiencing every small moment of this with the greatest possible passion (and at other times with smaller fits of hatred), even though I am still at the beginning of the journey. I like it, it's easy to walk, even in high heels, so I don't plan to stray from it.
The motto of the week is "my god, how much more will you lose"
For a while I counted how many colleagues I heard it from, then I was just incredibly proud of myself. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, we know what this really means (I know): I haven't lost enough weight yet to elicit such admiration from people. There's still a butt and thighs and belly. No more boobs!!
It would probably sound like this:
"Oh my god, you look good compared to how big you were"
So, my ego really enjoys all the dropped jaws, but let's be realistic with ourselves.
A lot of sweat will still run down my forehead until I'm truly the one people say "oh my god, you look great" about.
They are my girlfriends:
Even after 30 days, they still ask if they can eat cake or chocolate in front of me and if it bothers me.
In fact, my friend Ájvi even went so far as to take a whole spoonful of Nutella and tell me how it felt, just for my sake, so I would feel good. Her palate stuck to her tongue, and since she couldn't speak, she gave me disdainful looks instead (in retrospect, it was worth it for me), and I shrieked an excuse that if it was such suffering for her, she should look at me, who just had two huge tears roll down my cheeks at the sight of the Nutella swirling in her mouth.
I don't know who had it worse! J
If we have a girls' night in, they slice tomatoes and cucumbers for me separately so I can snack on something too. (all without me ever asking). Every time, they praise me for how proud they are of me and how much they support me. A dear little group of mine also follows my progress and I always get told how proud they are of me – "the college gang" with whom the number of meetups has decreased over the years due to getting married, expecting babies, raising babies, careers, all things that make me proud of them. In fact, a "goblin" even started the program, involving her sister and who knows how many more hundreds of women around her J. She writes and asks enthusiastically, and I know she'll see it through without any help.
The lucky thing is that everyone around me has started a lifestyle change, so when we go to my friend's (Dembi's) place, for example, I can freely raid her fridge because there's nothing but salad (and a well-hidden box of Nutella). There's one who regularly runs with me, and after the initial "let's see if I can do 5 km" monologue, she immediately did 7 km, all without any other sign of exertion besides a heart-shaped sweat stain on her butt. Then there's the other person who started her personalized program by Tomi this week. We get along incredibly well; sometimes a little self-pity, huge data exchange, we can curse Tomi together, and sometimes relief, like, "phew, good thing I'm not doing hers." We quickly compared our two programs today over lunch at Fruccola, and well, they're different in every way.
Tomi also talked a lot with her, the usual weighing happened, there was plenty of debate, and the unavoidable "I don't want to do it this way or that way" came up.
If I'm guessing correctly, this conversation also ended with Tomi's last sentence:
"If you don't like it, you don't have to do it. But if you do it, then do it exactly as I say. This isn't a wish list!!"
…and she's doing it, but not just her, her fiancé has started it with her too!
I still maintain that it's easier when both parties commit to it; it won't make things worse, it just makes things easier for the other person, and it's also in the man's interest to grab a shapely little butt in the evenings. Of course, this doesn't mean he also has to graze 5 times a day with his partner, just that to the question "what should I cook, darling?" he doesn't get the answer "pork hock stew with mashed potatoes and pickles", but rather switches to chicken-rice, fish, and turkey meats. This can always be jazzed up for them by serving it as a "manly" meal.
Tomi puts it very well:
"Diet doesn't mean starvation, but healthy eating."
Snippet
If none of the above 1536 words motivate you to do something to make things better, then girls, I recommend the following to start with:
Head to TESCO, pink Fit ball 65 cm (1990 HUF)!
You can do great abdominal exercises with it, it works every single one of your muscles, yet it doesn't feel strenuous…
Incidentally, it dawned on me while stretching, as I was idly rolling up and down the room with it, how wild an orgy one could have on it if "dad" has a "boring" half an hour. I haven't had the chance to subject it to a stress test yet, but I'm very curious about your experiences.
And girls, if you ever get tired of bouncing on the ball, maybe you'll even feel like doing some crunches one day.
Until then, I'll keep doing my crunches!
Petra
