Thinking about this as a whole is getting a bit overwhelming. I love plans, don’t get me wrong — I’d have been an awesome air traffic controller, or war strategist.

But this is SO big, SO pervasive and SO far-reaching that I’m having difficulties just keeping it all on the same mental page, so to speak.

So, now that I’ve painted the ugly picture of where I am, and ‘fessed up to where I want to be, I’ve got to take the plunge and figure out how to get from A to B. It would also be wise to think a bit about priorities, even though I’ve (foolishly? perhaps) committed myself publicly to undertaking all these projects at roughly the same time.

There are too many aspects to this to do at once in one post so I’m focusing on just the physical stuff here, and maybe I can combine a few of the remaining ambitions in subsequent parts.

First up: Image — by which I mean, of course, everything you see, the physical body of Lakshmi, the Goddess in Progress.

What Needs Reinventing

What’s in need of reinventing:

• weight
• fitness
• back pain and hip pain/leg numbness (I suspect both of these are linked to the back pain)
• skin
• thin patches of hair
• high blood pressure & (related) headaches
• weak nails
• style: wardrobe, the amount of care I take with myself, the way I put myself together, or don’t

Interestingly, I am beginning to see that all of these things will be impacted positively by the same approach. What that approach needs to include: exercise; better sleep hygiene and practice; better nutrition; regular meditation; yoga. That will take care of just about everything except the last item — style. (For that, I think I need a fashion intervention. Anybody know Stacy and Clinton’s phone number?) It might not be all that’s required to fix the hair, skin, and nails issues, but I suspect it will go a long way towards improvement, especially the nutritional overhaul.

Counter Considerations

There’s always a “yeah but” right? Here’s mine:

Yeah, but I need to be careful here. I have chronic health conditions that are negatively impacted by certain levels of physical exertion (the back pain, and CFIDS). I also need to be careful due to the hypertension.

I’ve chatted with my doc about this, and there is hope. It lies in a carefully implemented plan of “up titrating” my exercise dosage, just like they do with medications.

The Plan

It has six separate steps.

1. Exercise: I’m going to start with morning yoga, every morning — a half hour program based on a special DVD I found just for folks with scoliosis. Then every evening, I’ll walk for 15 minutes at first, working up in small doses to 45 minutes at a 5-minute-a-week increase.
2. Nutrition: I’m not using the “D-word.” I’m almost certainly eating too many calories, but at least initially, I’m not going to attempt to reduce my caloric intake. I’m just going to do two things: (1) log everything I eat, so I can really get a good sense of what I eat in a day — I really don’t think I know, frankly, and I’m a little nervous at finding that out, but goddesses are brave, so I’ll be brave, too; and (2) eat as low on the food chain as I can (that means favoring whole foods, fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean meats and fish over prepared and packaged foods). I am also going to try cutting out the sugar, or cutting down on it, anyway. I’m not much of a sweets-freak, but it certainly won’t hurt, and it might help.
3. Meditation: Every day, half an hour. Without fail.
4. Visualization: At the end of the half-hour meditation, I’m going to add 5-10 minutes of visualizing my ambition realized — seeing in my mind, as if staring in a mirror, my leaner and fitter body, clothed in stylish and tailored attire with really pretty shoes. I’m thinking Louboutins.
5. Vitamins: I’m not going crazy on the supplementation, because frankly, I’ve tried it before with the CFIDS and it never really made me feel any different. But I do think a good multi and maybe some extra calcium are good things to do on a regular basis, given my age and the threat of osteoporosis.
6. Sleep: I’m going to do all I can to make my sleep deeper and better. I haven’t been sleeping well at all lately, and this has got to stop. I’m going to do all the usually advised things like blackout shades, keeping the room cool, going to bed and getting up at the same time every day, not doing anything in the bedroom except sleeping (and sex, they say, but since that ain’t happening… sigh).

I’m also going to use this HairMax laser comb someone bought me for Christmas last year (don’t worry, I’d actually asked for it — and then promptly never used it).

To keep me on track and motivated, I’m going to do something rather appalling. I’m gonna post my updates in the form of a log on this site. I won’t post all the things I eat, ’cause that would be weird and boring as hell. But I’ll figure out some relatively easy way to keep a log of exercise and the other steps listed above and make it all public. (The experts say that public commitment and accountability raise the chances for success for any self-improvement project. Which, if you think about it, is sort of the whole idea behind this blog.)

As for the style portion of the vision, well — I can’t do anything about this one yet, in terms of reinvention. All I can do is plan for the ultimate reinvention by:

• Research — I know there are books and magazines out there that teach what styles look best on which body types. Of course, until the body type evolves, it’s hard to know what that’s going to be after the weight loss. But at least I can do some basic research.
• Work with colors — figure out which look best on me.
• Make more effort with what I’ve got, in the interim.

That last one is going to require taking inventory and cleaning out the closet of everything that currently doesn’t fit. (Although I’m going to break with traditional wisdom in one sense: I am so NOT going to get rid of clothes that are too small for me. I totally intend to wear those jeans again. SOON.)

So - that’s it. My grand plan for reinventing my body and image. It starts on Monday, the 28th.

Can you believe I’m excited? I am!