Matryoshka

For years now I have had my mind focused almost completely on acquiring knowledge. From the day I started in 2005 with the course of counseling, followed by several brief courses, before I enrolled in the mathematical course which was required to enter the study of psychology. In my mind’s eye I still appeared not too fat even though I never have been a skinny person. Sometimes in the last few years I was a little concerned about the size of my physical appearance, especially after seeing myself in a picture or a video. However, I kept on snacking chocolate and cookies in times of exam stress. Many times, I did a Scarlett O’hara about that and thought I would deal with it later. Last year me and a male friend were discussing the types we preferred of the opposite sexes. Mind, he is neither in perfect shape at all but he was quite explicit when he stated that he liked women not as big as me. Wow, digesting that I thought “Look who is talking”, but admittedly I was feeling very positive about having lost 14 pounds without any effort after returning home from my visit to him. It must have been the heat and the change of environment because I didn’t turn down any food or sweets and I enjoyed every meal he offered me. Unfortunately school started again pretty soon after coming home and before the first semester was over I gained back those pounds again. Still I didn’t worry much about that. When my favorite black jeans didn’t fit as comfortable anymore I had a few properly other pants left. But now it is almost time for tank tops and short skirts revealing much more bare skin than in Winter, I can’t hide the spare tire around my waist no longer. I have to face it: There is work to be done! 

Although very tempting for the short term prospect, I will not settle for crash dieting. I’ve decided not only to lose 30 pounds and tighten my skin but I also wish to become more energetic. So, there it is, I stated it out loud here in my blog for you all to be witness of my goal. While I am typing this down there is just the slightest bit of doubt bubbling up in my mind; Do I really want to go for it? All I can say to that is: “Yes, yes, yes!”. Now this first obstacle has been taken, to admit openly that I want to be slimmer it is time to come up with a proper plan of how to really accomplish that. It will be a little difficult to find a healthy diet because I am a picky eater. I absolutely won’t eat anything that has been living in the water or has had wings on its body. And, I have become really addicted to my daily dose of chocolate. But hey, nobody said this would be easy. I think I also need something to visualize the amount of what I want to get rid of and see the progress I will be making. I am looking at the stack of textbooks I’ve digested for school so far, and thinking how heavy they are. I pick up my Eastpack rucksack and start filling it with books. There it goes:

-          - Cognitive Neuroscience (hardcopy), 4.2 pounds

-          - Personality Psychology/Abnormal Psychology, Custom edition for Leiden University, 2.6 pounds

-          - Abnormal Child and Adolescent Psychology, 2 pounds

-          - The Neuroscience of Clinical Psychiatry, 1.5 pounds

-          - Attention, Theory and Practice, 1.5 pounds

-          - Critical Thinking, 2 pounds

-          - Psychometrics, 1.5 pounds

-          - Behavioral Research Methods, 1.5 pounds

-          - Cognitieve Sociale Psychology, 1.5 pounds

I have to take another bag because no matter how hard I push, there won’t fit anything anymore in this one. And I am only halfway.

-         -  4 small books from Psychopathology, Assessment and Interventions, together 3.4 pounds

-          - Seksuologie, 2.7 pounds

-          - Discovering Statistics using SPSS (and sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll), 3.4 pounds

-          - The Science of Emotion, 1 pound

O my, I’ve run out of books because I’ve already sold much from the first and second year and adding it all up makes the sum of 27.3 pounds, almost there though. I will add the syllabi from the five statistics courses and the one from the bachelor project to round it up to 30 pounds. It feels very heavy when I try to lift both bags. No wonder I am out of breathe so easily. Now that it has become very vivid what I am challenging I will have to think thoroughly of both a food and an exercise plan. I will do that coming week. For now I am glad that I didn’t buy any chocolate eggs for Easter but I will enjoy the Easter brunch today very much, as if it is the last supper. Happy Easter everybody!