progress...?

Well, last week I was down three pounds-- gotta love the first week of weight watchers for getting rid of water weight. This week-- no change. Going to keep working the program, I guess, and try to be happy that I'm maintaining. Just cooked up a big batch of tofu scramble for my lunches this week. I tend to get into self-imposed food ruts, eating the same thing for days at a time, for breakfast and lunch. It gets a little boring, but I'm lazy. Also, working two jobs at the moment doesn't leave me with a lot of time or energy to plan fancy-pants lunches.

I took a trip to value village today-- right now I'm a 14, bordering on a 12 in some things. But all the good clothes are in an 8 or 10. Sizes over that are pretty slim pickings-- don't bigger ladies ever get rid of their clothes? Or do skinnier people just buy clothes every week because they're so easy to find? I'm going to have an awesome, cheap wardrobe a few pounds from now.

I've been reading "The War of Art" by Stephen Pressfield, which I would highly recommend to anyone in a creative field, especially anyone who's struggling (and who doesn't struggle from time to time?). It's an easy read, very concise and to the point. He talks a lot about resistance, and there are a couple of concepts that really stuck with me. He talks about the amateur and the professional, not so much in a training/money-making sense, but in the sense of commitment. The basic difference is that the professional is fully committed to the work, not the end product, not defining themselves by their art form, not taking things so personally. But the main difference he defines is that the amateur believes that "if I could just overcome my fear, everything will be fine". Whereas the professional knows that the fear is always there, can never be vanquished completely, but you just have to feel the fear and do it anyway. Which has definitely been a point of contention for me lately.

The other thing that struck me was when he tells a story of writing a screenplay that he really believed in, it being made into a movie he really believed in, only to have it panned and fail. He was feeling depressed, dejected, and negative, when someone told him to stop it, because criticism and potential failure "is the risk you take for being in the arena and not in the stands". Which really hit home for me.

I want to be in the arena. Because I feel like I've been hovering in the stands for a while now.

Anyway, off to tupperware some tofu for tomorrow...