Hello Again

Ok! Sooo I haven't written a post since February, which would have been approximately seven months ago. Wow.

The thing is that I was so sure I was just going to throw in the towel on this whole "get fit, get healthy" idea. In fact, during the last seven months, it always seemed like I was quitting and starting again every other week. I'm sure that a lot of people know what I mean...Sunday night, you say to yourself "this is a new week". You have one "last meal", and you don't even want to know how many calories are in it, but it's the last one for a long time, so you'd better make it good. You wake up the next morning, and maybe you're still just as motivated, so you get cracking on that exercise, and you push yourself to your limit, probably because you're so inspired to shed those pounds. Middle of the week comes, and it feels a little more like a chore, but you're still in it. Then comes your "weekend off", and it all goes out the window because you never actually pick back up where you started like you said you would, and you just end up feeling bad about it all, until you decide to do it again the next week, or even the following week. A never-ending cycle, and this time, it's going to be different. It's always going to be different.

So you can imagine how I was starting to feel, week after week after week of doing this. I felt like a joke, like I was going nowhere fast, and making a show of it. Truth is, I really was at the point where I was looking in the mirror at myself, saying "well, I may as well get used to it, because I'm going to be like this forever. Maybe I should think about my good qualities..." I stopped trying to get back into my supposed "health kick" that was taking me on the road to nowhere, and just didn't really do anything. I started to become a miserable person, drinking every night after putting my son to bed, waking up hung-over and ready to argue with my husband for no apparent reason. I saw my doctor a month ago, and stepped on the scale (I hadn't done that in several months). I was at 275 lbs., the most I've ever weighed.

Interestingly, it was my doctor who sort of put me on the right path again. He wanted me to get blood work to check my cholesterol, and it was one of those "I don't even want to know" deals, but he pushed the weight issue. He asked me if I could walk for 30 minutes a day. Initially, I thought, where is that going to get me? I can't lose weight by walking! But again, that's not supposed to be the point here, it's supposed to be about getting better and improving my life in general. So it kind of stuck with me, and every day I started to say to myself "can you walk 30 minutes today? Yes, I can."

I didn't set another big goal aside from that, except for one thing: to stop eating fast food. Don't worry about your calories right now, don't worry about portion-sizes, just stop eating fast food, and start making everything you put into your body yourself (with the exception of the once-a-week restaurant night, but then the goal was to stay away from anything fried). It was tough; I almost immediately missed the convenience of it, but I was able to stick to that one goal. I didn't even get my coffee from Dunkin' Donuts; I made it myself each day. The aim was to focus on one thing at a time. Again, my problem is that I am an extremely anxious, and otherwise emotional person. I eat my emotions. I have an addictive personality, but food is my vice. If I were to start doing drugs or put all my focus into something like gambling to relieve some of those emotions, I would need one of those other things as a crutch. It's not something that I can just up and say "well, this week, I'm going to eat normal!" Doesn't work that way. I remember before my wedding, I told someone that I was going to easily lose 40 lbs. in two months, and it actually made me put on weight. I'm blown away that I used to think that I could do it!

So here I am, walking every day and not eating fast food, but still, I have that urge to rush right home from work and stuff myself after a tough day, or maybe stuff myself because I'm agitated at someone, or go out for a night with my husband and stuff myself because "it's my day off". That urge to swing through the drive-thru is something I still have to push away, although it's not overly difficult. Obviously, that isn't going to help with losing weight. Then I remembered how I used to practice zen regularly. I meditated every single day. I was completely emotionally balanced about five years ago, and since my mom passed away, I could never quite find my way back to that inner peace I felt beforehand.

So I recently started to meditate, and it has basically helped me to wake up to my life. I have been working on being present in my body at all times. Whenever I am overcome by some emotion, I return to my breath, and bring back the awareness I have of my body and my surroundings. I'm finding that I am not interested in food anymore, except for the purpose of nourishment. I am finally able to discipline myself (meditation and self-awakening takes a lot of discipline, especially if you are prone to stress like I am, but trust me, it is worth it!) I will talk more about this later on, but for now, I need to sleep (I've also been exercising every day, at my own pace, and it makes me very tired at night, whereas I used to stay up all night because the quality of my sleep was so poor). I'll just leave off by saying this: things are finally becoming clear to me again. My only reason now for wanting to lose weight is to improve my health and the quality of my life, and I think those are the right reasons. I'm interested to see where this takes me, but I will be living in each moment, always, and not worrying about the future! :)