Day 24

Confessions:

I've been feeling disenchanted for a couple days now. I made the mistake to weigh myself and unofficially count it, every morning. The first 3 weeks were so motivating because I would be less and less everyday. I was also working out and eating right, nearly every day. This week on Tuesday, I weighed myself and it was more than Monday. My sensitive emotions got the better of me and I began to sabotage myself.

Andrew and the old me went out to dinner last night at Montana's. We had a cheese, fatty appetizer with fried goodies for dipping. Then we had the largest order of ribs with garlic mashed potatoes--I skipped the extra cheese, sour cream, and bacon bits that I usually get. Then dessert came, and I instinctively ordered the Mile High Mud Pie. We ate until there was only one bite left. We both passed on the one bite left (how noble). During dinner Andrew told me that he's been reading my blog. He said in reading it, he's noticed recently a lot of "I knew I shouldn't, but I did['s]" type of terminology.

I know I've been playing this game for a few days now. I talk about gaining the balance in my life. What I'm missing is that in balance, I can be okay with the occasional sugar high, or artery clogging piece of deliciousness. What I can't be okay with is doing a little bit everyday. In doing this, all I'm doing is saying it's okay to still live my old lifestyle, just to a lesser degree. I'm trying to completely change. I'm trying to make healthy my priority instead of the exception.

After stepping on the scale and seeing an increase, my motivation didn't just slip out the door, it ran out, screaming bloody murder. I immediately felt defeated. Those all or nothing thoughts, those perfectionist goals started laughing in my face. Failure, failure, failure.
In my head, I know I'm doing better--if we were to graph this process you'd see an overall incline. But these last couple of days, I'd say lets just cut our losses, and shred that f-ing graph because who cares if we play this childish game or not--I'm going to be fat forever no matter what I do. Motivating, hey?

It was an eye opener when Andrew called me out at dinner. I immediately thought to justify it, but almost as immediately minus a second, I thought wait a minute, you do suck right now. Right away I thought about the 1/3 bag of chips during Michael Jackson's memorial. I thought about my food diary, and how I'm not really talking about vegetables and fruits anymore. I remembered what my house looks like, my cupboards, my fridge. It's total chaos. I haven't even put away our camping stuff since we came home from the weekend. There's so much dog hair on the floor, I could send it away to a wig charity. The cupboards are messy, the fridge is empty. So I'm eating whatever's left and it happens to be coming from a box or a bag.

So what do I do with all of this? I'm writing but I'm still feeling down. I realize that body weight fluctuates. Here's a new rule: no more weighing yourself daily. What about food? Dang it. This is my biggest struggle ever! I can quit smoking after 7 years along with all my other vices--what the heck is the problem here?

Okay, maybe food addiction. That seems plausible, but if I were addicted to food, then I think I'd be shovelling it into my mouth all day long which is not the case. I'm okay to go a few hours without and I don't necessarily crave the stuff unless my blood sugar is low, but then that's a normal physiological response. So what is it? I think it's my thinking. I think I'm too hard on myself all the time, in every aspect of my life so if I see a slip or a mistake, I'm just going to keep doing it and sabotaging myself because I don't accept anything less and this is my non caring attitude. What's stupid about that attitude is that in the act of sabotaging myself, that's the least that it can go. That's worst than slipping up once in awhile. But in my head that's acceptable. What gives me the right to fail on purpose?

I need to be healthy. I need to be able to carry a baby to full term and not have my body reject it or put us into unnecessary hardship. I need to outlive my parents' deceased ages so that I actually live to see grandchildren, and not put my children though emotional unease too early in their lives. I need to live with my husband to see our 50th wedding anniversary. I need to free myself of the social pain my body demands.

I guess it comes back to loving yourself. It's difficult to do when you see yourself fail. You start to doubt, resent, and hate yourself. You can't make good choices and have the want if you hate the reason why you're doing it. It could be just my monthly emotions getting the best of me. I hate feeling like this. I'm in a funk that I can't see a way out of. I start trying positive talk and it makes me repel even more. I'm such a rebel!

I have a mantra that's never failed: fake it 'til you make it. I started this in counselling when I discovered that stress was making me impossible to live with. I was rebelling the therapist's advice to try these things that would help me speak softer. Because I didn't want to do them because I was being a child, I faked it. Maybe there was a smidgen of mockery to it in the beginning, but I faked it more. I just wasn't feeling it. Finally, after a while, it would get easier to do it. The fake became real. I've learned how to incorporate that into many struggles that I have that require some sort of change. Now, I suppose, I should fake it the most to get myself back into feeling that I Am Healthy, because I sure as heck don't feel it. Quit being so hard on yourself. I know. I know. I know. Knowing is not doing. Okay, so I'll be fake for awhile--fake feeling good about myself until I do. Just writing this has helped a bit so hopefully it won't be too far off. I do have a psychotic devil on one shoulder, and a lethargic angel on the other. Wake up!

Meals
6 saltine crackers
1 piece of Swiss cheese
3 graham crackers
1 tbsp Becel margarine
5 All Dressed chips (I'm throwing the rest out today because I'm sick of this)
1 mini pizza
2 cups of water

2 mini pizzas
1 cup of watermelon
2 cups of water

1/2 spinach dip appetizer (approx 3/4 cup) all cheesy, hardly any spinach
1/2 fried pita chips (approx 10)
1/3 rack of back ribs, extra apple butter sauce
1/4 cup of garlic mashed potatoes
1 piece of cornbread
2 cups of water

1/2 piece of Mile High Mud Pie (if I could guess, I think the entire thing had 1000 calories)
2 cups of water

Exercise
None

Notes:
-I think I've explained everything there is to explain. I overate today. I was old me today. I didn't care today at all. But I wrote this and now I feel better, and hopefully there will be a reevaluation going through my little head and my wimpy little heart.
-My friend had a concert to go to tonight so I decided, thank goodness, I'm not going to the gym either. Stupid.

Day 23

Andrew was reinstalling windows or something like that, so the computer was unavailable on Wednesday. I was too tired to go to the basement and struggle with the slowest computer on earth at 23:30, so I decided to skip my post and make it up.

Meals
2 burritos (l/o)
2 cups of water

3 graham crackers
1 tbsp of Becel margarine
2 cups of water

2 burritos (l/0)
2 cups of water

3 graham crackers
2 tbsp Becel margarine
2 cups of water

Exercise
None

Notes: sigh