The week after my last entry, I lost down to 252lbs. I was floating on cloud nine! The next week I had an awful week at work, followed by a week of stomach illness. I allowed my stress and anger and illness to become a food weakness, and I resorted to comfort foods. My number one comfort food is...French Fries! I gained back the three pounds I had lost, effectively reversing all the effort I put into losing that weight. And what did I find on the other side of that gain? A general lack of want to do anything, an almost animalistic craving for foods that I don't need at times when I don't feel hungry, and having to acknowledge that I had done so poorly for my body that I was swelling up to look larger than I did before I started my journey! I plunged myself right back down the rabbit hole to depression, and didn't realize it until it was too late!
I found myself sitting on my couch stressed over how I had let my life go and wondering what could possibly cause me to always go back to square one. I thought long and hard. I know that I know what I need to do to better my life and myself in general. I even have motivation to do the things necessary to realize my happiness. So, what could be standing in my way? Then it hit me, the one thing that I cannot get rid of, and must learn to overcome. Myself. I know that realization can be seen in one of both ways, either, "DUH!" or "That's just being mean to yourself." Well, in my opinion, it's both. I should have known all along that the problem starts with me, and I may have known this, but it took me actually taking the time to think about how I have been given so many tools and so many chances and get the same result, to finally convince myself it must be me that needs to be fixed! I also thought, well if it's me, then how am I supposed to ever change? I will always be myself right? I figured out that the only way to get around the part of myself that stops me from getting where I want to go, is to let the part that knows what to do take over. I have so far to go to get to being the person I want to be, but now I at least know what I must do to become that person.
Seeing myself with two sides might make me sound a little schizo, but doesn't the world see everything that way? I mean look at good vs. evil. I need to get rid of the fat little version of me sitting on my right shoulder, dressed up in red with a little knife and pitchfork in her hands like in the cartoons, and let the healthy happy "angelic" version of me, who is thin and wearing running shoes, on my left shoulder, take over. It sounds kinda crazy, I know, but it's a visual of the battle I am fighting with myself every second, every minute, every day, all the time!
It's So hard not to be down on myself all the time, knowing that I have been in my own way, but then I remember that being down on myself is just another way of hurting myself. It's time to flip the Stacey coin. I do not need to imagine that I can blab wonderful scenarios of my weight loss, and then expect it to happen as I sit on the couch making excuses not to exercise and to eat bad foods instead. I do not need to think that the world is going to give me anything just because that's what I expect to happen. It doesn't work that way.
I've started trying to manipulate myself to change. I have been trying So hard to do what I need to do, and it's like the bad side of me is fighting for her life! Yesterday after work, my knee started hurting again. Obviously I hadn't been running in a while, so why, on the day that I had actually decided to do some sort of exercise, did my knee start hurting? Coincidence? Probably not. I didn't let my self doubt win though. I had the equipment (knee brace and shoes) to go for a run, so why not go with Kris when he offered? It was impulse really that did it for me. I completely intended to back out, but at the last minute I suited up, and walked out the door. I ran exactly 2 minutes and 45 seconds. I couldn't continue after that, so I decided to walk for half an hour while Kris finished his run. It was a small victory for me, but a victory nonetheless. My knee has been hurting me off and on all day today. I know that it's just a lack of fitness in my leg muscles and nothing I need to truly worry over, but it's like the bad side of me is nagging, "See? When you run, it hurts, so why run?" My mission is to fight her, even if she is me. I will try to see, within reason, if fighting through my pain is the best way to eradicate her from my life altogether! A, sort of, killing her off and letting my strength win. I know that I will do this for myself, so I can finally live my life like I should!
Sorry for the crazy entry this week, I know I probably sound completely mad at this point, but I'm done doing the same thing over and over expecting different results, and I will not be doing the same anymore, I am changing it all this time. If any of you read my buddy Kady's blog, you'll know that she recently used the song I'm using this week. At the risk of copying her (again ;) jk) I am putting the song "Some Nights" by Fun. in my blog this week, because it's amazing, it's uplifting, it gets me going, and because of the lyric, "This is it boys this is war, what are we waiting for? Why don't we break the rules already?" I am breaking out of my mold, I will be my exception, not my rule, from now on, so this fits perfectly, because it will definitely be a war! Listen to this song here, also note that I have chosen a cover video, because it's beautiful, like the original, but I really like this version too.
I've also chosen my motivational picture for the month, it says it all for me really.
