My 60 days with Insanity

 I'm trying to make a vlog of the experience. I just loaded all the not-workout recordings into my editing software, and I have 4 and a half hours of footage. Pray for me.

I'm not even entirely sure of the story I want to be telling. After all, it would come off as an ad for people to do Insanity, which I don't intend it as. I don't want people to get the impression that this program will melt ten kilos off of them in two months. I don't want to make it look any less challenging than it was, or any less fun, or any less painful. There were weeks where I was sore, periods when I was training with a knee brace, and moreover, this is just the start of it all. I'm gonna do the program again, for two reasons: one of them is I'm hoping to lose another ten kilos with it, but the other is to see if I even would.

I think I should emphasize its effects on my mental health more - for that it would help if I'd actually been diagnosed with depression.

I did write an entire script out, in which I tried to decentralise my weight loss and focus on the self love, but I'm just not sure if making the vlog at all is the right thing to do.

I'm in a bit of a pickle here, because I'd like to become an influencer, to have people follow me, to have the recognition and whatever, but I'm also quite uncomfortable presenting myself as an expert on anything. I think I could eventually start doing online workouts, but they'd never be based on actual Knowledge, just my own experience. Hell, even if people ask me if they should drink protein shakes, I'm uncomfortable giving a direct answer.

I base my decision making not on direct advice, but on my interpretations of information. So I'm uncomfortable giving advice and more comfortable giving sources to information. And yet, here I'm trying to become the source of information on Insanity, and I'm scared of messing up.

Maybe I take too much responsibility onto myself? Maybe I underestimate my audience?

But how responsible am I for the choices that others make? Can I just put a disclaimer to "Please don't do what I did, and actually talk to your doctor before starting the program"? Would it be worth anything? I'm just considering how the doctor I saw was so obsessed with weight loss, she didn't even ask what I was doing when I told her I was on that journey. Didn't bother to check if I was eating right, if I was training okay, if I had someone who knows their shit advising me! And later, that other doctor, who gave me a limit of 1500 calories? Could I trust them to check me or anyone else?

I think I should tell my audience I didn't give two shits about meal plans. That I ate whatever I wanted and however much I felt good with. But this could lead to the conclusion that you can just simply out-exercise whatever diet you have? I don't want to lie.

I think I should tell them why I stopped calorie counting?

I'm quite unsure of how to do any of it. It's not just as simple as it was with my vaccine vlog. I do agree with the basic question of getting vaccinated (specifically, now, against covid, but in general, too); but I don't agree with the general principle of losing weight. Then why did I do that?

First, out of utter boredom. Second, because I absolutely hated my life. Third, because someone I look up to started a program as well. Fourth, because despite somehow learning to love myself, I was still feeling like a stranger in my body, like a stone dropped on the middle of the sidewalk, I felt I couldn't control my movements as I used to.

Yes, I do love weighing less. It's less painful, for example. Or my stomach doesn't touch my mons anymore. What I love even more is the stamina I got, that I didn't really have, even before - being able to run certain intervals that had me feeling like death before, for example. Or being able to do 16 modified burpees (17 in my final fit test). My goal for the modified burpees is actually 80, but when I started, I could barely do 3. If I can do 16, I can do 80.

Maybe I shouldn't make any commentary. I should maybe just present the clips, with no words, and then no one can misunderstand what I say. Of course, any intention can be ascribed to me either way.

Do I have internalized fatphobia? Maybe. I don't want to be fat: not only for the aesthetic reasons, I actually think I look pretty damn hot now, as well; but, as cliche as it is, the health reasons. I never want to have back pain from running. I also don't want to have joint pain from weight loss, though. I also want my hormones to be balanced, but am not sure how to get to that. And most importantly, I want to keep the mental health that Insanity got me, going. If there is just one thing on the planet that I can do to keep myself out of that well of despair and deathwish I'd had in February, I will do it. Basically anything.

Ironic that a program called Insanity made me sane, huh?

Should I put screenshots from my Daylio journal into the video? Sadly, there wouldn't be much to see, because even when I'm feeling bad, I'll put it down as "good", because I'd became accustomed to it, and I know it could be worse. So, basically, unless I had a particularly bad or awesome day, it'll be marked as good. Is this cheating? It's how life feels to me. Sometimes good means good, sometimes good means "it could be so much worse, too". Besides, how would I show that otherwise?

Should I just tell people how my life turned around? No, I'd hate to hear that in a video. Start a fitness program and your entire life will be so much better? It's the dumbest thing you could recommend.

I know that until someone is actually ready, all recommendations will sound dumb and all attempts will fail or at least fade. But when you are ready, you won't need an influencer to tell you, or an infographic, or, basically, anything other than a couple comfy clothes. When you are ready, you'll make it happen. But I don't know how to express that there is no shame in being ready? That you don't have to want to change? That your life is not a "before", even if you start a weightloss journey? And most importantly, how do I tell people for certain that this is not actually a diet thing, a periodic, intermittent, quick fix? How do I tell people that it never ends, for two reasons? You will have to keep working out and eating "well", because your old patterns were the key to your old self, and your new self can only be sustained through new ways. And I will have to keep working out and eating well, because if I don't eat "well", I cannot work out, and if I don't work out, my brain turns to mush.

I don't want to give the impression that the physical changes are the only reason I was doing what I was doing, but I also don't want to act like they weren't part of my plan or expectations. And having a (slightly) different body helps my mental health as well, so I might actually have internalized fatphobia, because I've not felt hot before. Not even when I was told I was. I just looked at some old photos the other day and saw that I actually looked good in them. And I see that now I look similar, and I actually like how I look. Not only because I'm smaller, but because I know I did this. So I want to celebrate that I did this. That should be the positioning, then.