R and A's journey to fitness

Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.

Opia: The ambiguous intensity of Looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.

Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.

Énouement: The bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.

Vellichor: The strange wistfulness of used bookshops.

Rubatosis: The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.

Kenopsia: The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.

Mauerbauertraurigkeit: The inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like.

Jouska: A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.

Chrysalism: The amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.

Vemödalen: The frustration of photographic something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist.

Anecdoche: A conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening

Ellipsism: A sadness that you’ll never be able to know how history will turn out.

Kuebiko: A state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence.

Lachesism: The desire to be struck by disaster – to survive a plane crash, or to lose everything in a fire.

Exulansis: The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it.

Adronitis: Frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone.

Rückkehrunruhe: The feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness.

Nodus Tollens: The realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore.

Onism: The frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time.

Liberosis: The desire to care less about things.

Altschmerz: Weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had – the same boring flaws and anxieties that you’ve been gnawing on for years.

NEVER DIET EVER AGAIN. 

Dieting fucks up your head. It messed me up. I felt so goddamn guilty for eating chocolate, chips, cake, junk food. I couldn’t live with myself eating those foods. I felt like I needed them so desperately but I couldn’t have them because they would wreck my body. My mentality towards food became so unhealthy, so distorted and absolutely paranoid. Every minute of every waking hour was preoccupied with thoughts about food, obsessing over every morsel that passed my lips, wishing so badly to be thin. I fucking hated myself so much, my self esteem couldn’t have been any lower and any hope of being able to change my situation was lost. I couldn’t focus on anything else, I couldn’t care about anyone, I couldn’t form relationships with people. I was stuck in this viscous, unrelenting cycle for years and years and years. So now i will never diet again. I learnt the hard way dieting leads me to binge eating, hate myself and spiral out of control every single time. Anytime you have rigid rules, you will have guilt, so open your mind to all the grey areas and live happier.

HOW TO EAT 

Enjoy your food. Don’t feel guilty no matter what you eat. Guilt is a disgusting, devastating emotion, it will eat you alive. You have to enjoy what you eat otherwise you will feel the need to binge eat to fulfill your needs. If you don’t enjoy your food, you have to keep eating to search for the thing that gives you that kick. And sometimes you binge on everything and you still can’t find it because you can’t get rid of that unrelenting guilt you feel and it will always ruin your enjoyment of food. 

Use food to change the way you feel. Eating healthy makes you feel better, so eat healthy. Eat clean, eat good things for your body so you can have clear skin, better concentration, sleep better, look better, feel happier. Food can change your mood, it can shift your entire outlook in life so use it, use it to make you happy.  Eating junk all the time feels heavy, it feels like brain fog, it feels like depression and anxiety and hopelessness. So it’s not worth consuming all the time.    

Life is unpredictable and filled with imperfections, so, as it happens, is eating. Unexpected circumstances pop up and can ruin our best intentions. Embrace it as a learning opportunity and eat at that restaurant with your friends even if you feel like you should be eating healthy. Enjoy the experience. Hope for the best but if the worst happens, adapt. If you make mistakes, learn from it, carry on. No food you eat or way of eating can be worse than a cycle of binging and self hatred.

Your idea of healthy is too healthy. It’s asking too much of yourself too soon. Be honest, is your idea of ‘healthy’ realistic? Can you really eat no junk food at all for the rest of your life? Can you live without chocolate at this point? Can you go vegan cold turkey? Can you be organic, gluten free today and every day for the rest of your life? Can you just eat one cookie per week? Eating unhealthy is healthy depending on what kind of scale you have. You can eat bad meals a few times a week and be ‘unhealthy’ and still be biologically healthy. So loosen those reigns, it’s about sacrificing short term desires for long term gains. You have to do what’s realistic and sustainable and smart. Treat yourself sometimes because you are human and it’s okay. And in the grand scheme of things, it’s never as bad as you think it is.  

Fulfill your cravings with people, don’t do it alone. Purchasing food alone and eating alone are massive binge triggers, so eat junk food with friends, dine out on coffees, greasy food and other dishes with other people. Don’t buy food for yourself, share it. Sharing symbolizes generosity but also a lack of guilt for indulging. It’s a form of honesty because you are no longer hiding food in your bedroom, binging alone in the kitchen or stuffing your face alone on the train with headphones plugged in and the your head buried in a book. There is a freedom in that. 

You have way more control than you think. You don’t have to go off on every whim, every emotional desire to eat, every fleeting craving big or small, every cue to eat. You are the one in control. You can choose your battles. Not every craving needs to be gratified instantly, think about why you want it and how it will effect you and if you are willing to pay the price. Sometimes you will be, sometimes you wont.     

YOU’RE NOT UGLY

Pimples, love handles, thunder thighs, double chins.. all that can change. Peoples’ bodies can change like the weather. You are alive, you can be anything. Time and effort can turn you into anything. You are beautiful because of all the shit that has happened to you in the past, all the shit you have to live with right now and the demons you battle every day in your head and you are beautiful for the potential that is hidden inside you, waiting to burst out. You are beautiful because you are a survivor and you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. 

GET FIT AND STRONG

A strong body will always feel better than a sedentary, weak body. So make yourself strong physically to fight off your demons. Cultivate a strong mind by first cultivating a strong, indestructible body. Be structured, be disciplined and be everything you ever wanted to be. 

BE YOUR OWN FUCKING HERO   

Don’t compare anything you do to anyone else. Heck no, this is your life, your journey. You do whatever you need to to be strong. You do not have to be like anyone else, go to the gym because everyone else is, be threatened by other people’s health and weight loss efforts or feel belittled in comparison. Deep down, everyone is just as lost and insecure as you are, some people just wear a better mask than others. You are the captain of your own ship so go and get it.  

DON’T GIVE UP 

pros: u seem cooler