Time to Decide

 Today was a day of decisions.  When I woke up this morning, I felt completely sick to my stomach.  I felt awful.  The reason?  Well, last night after going to a play with a couple friends, I ended up going to a local pizza place and getting dinner and completely overeating.  It wasn't a binge, I was just hungry and tired and wasn't really thinking straight.  Looking at that decision by the light of a new day, I was furious with myself.  Yesterday wasn't one of my better days.  I woke up a bit later than I meant to and then suddenly remembered that I needed to gas up my car, so I shoveled down a leftover waffle with some watermelon and ran out the door.  It was hardly a satisfying breakfast so I picked up a bag of mixed nuts at the gas station.  I WAS proud of the fact that I chose the nuts over all the unhealthy junk food you normally find at gas stations.  I figured the nuts were a bit healthier and they would help keep me from getting too hungry before my lunch.  For lunch I had my leftover fajitas which tasted fantastic and filled me up and helped to energize me a bit too.

But by the time I got off work, I was exhausted.  I was still struggling with getting to sleep at night so I hadn't gotten near the amount of sleep I really needed.  When I got home, I was rushing around trying to get changed, feed my dogs, feed my cats, and generally just get some of the things that needed to get done done before heading to the play.  When I started looking at something to have for dinner, I found that we didn't seem to have a ton of leftovers and I would have to fix something.  I wasn't feeling terribly hungry and since I didn't really have time to fix anything if I didn't want to be late, I decided to skip dinner.  Worst decision ever.  The play was a lot of fun as was getting to chat with my friends afterwards.  It was just after nine when I started heading for home.  I was so tired, but I was also very hungry by this time.  I had no energy to fix anything at home and that's when I thought about the pizza place that wasn't too far away.  So I headed over there and ordered way too much for one person to eat, let alone someone who's trying to eat healthy, and ate it all.  Like I said, I wasn't bingeing, I was just hungry and I really overate.  When I got home, I completely crashed, but my stomach started bothering me during the night and woke me up a few times.

And like I said, this morning I was severely pissed off with myself.  I had been doing so well and then I blew it.  And what really ticked me off was that it had so NOT been worth it.  I couldn't remember what it tasted like, nothing.  I just knew I had eaten a ton of food that I didn't need and I felt like crap.  At that point I had a decision to make.  Generally when something like that has happened to me, I throw my hands up in the air and give up.  So this morning I had to decide if I was going to let one bad day make me give up.  I'm sorry to say that at that point, I wasn't sure.  I was frustrated, I was still tired and I had a long day ahead of me.

I skipped breakfast because my stomach was just so unhappy and I knew eating anything would just make things worse.  I did eat a few pieces of apple that one of my co-workers offered, but that was it.  By lunch my stomach was feeling better and I had a decision to make.  Was I going to try to eat something healthy or go with something more unhealthy?  I ended up going over to Smith's again and got a wrap and potato salad since I hadn't had time to pack a lunch again.  They also had a yummy looking fruit salad so I got a little bit of it as well.  I resisted the temptation to get a tea or anything but water to drink.  I really enjoyed my lunch and the fact that it was fairly healthy and still tasted really good, encouraged me.  After I got off of work, I was again just feeling really tired and had no desire to go home and try to exercise.  And since I was on my feet more today. they were causing me a lot of pain which further discouraged me.

When I got home though, I received encouragement in the forms of two packages out on the porch.  The first box had a bunch of books about climbing Mt. Everest and K2 in it that I had ordered a while back.  I have a bit of a fascination with mountaineering, primarily in regards to mountains like Mt. Everest, the ones that only the elite attempt.  For some reason, I just find those kinds of mountains and the people who climb them amazing.  While I have no intention of climbing anything like Everest or K2 or anything nearly that difficult, I do have a desire to try climbing mountains.  That's one of the minor reasons I wanted to start working to lose weight.  The other box contained a pair of boots that I ordered about a week or so ago.  I am a huge Lord of the Rings/Hobbit fan and another of my minor reasons to lose weight is so that I can make a costume for the final Hobbit movie premiere and go as the elf Tauriel.  The boots are the first part of that costume that I have gotten.  They don't fit, my legs are too big, and they're too small in the foot so I'll have to return them, but they're a reminder for me that losing weight is something I really want to do.  So with those things to encourage and push me, I decided that I would go for my walk and forced myself to get changed and head out.

It was a struggle almost directly from the start.  My feet were burning and my leg muscles were aching.  Honestly, the only things that kept me going were the facts that I had done this twice before this week and that I had majorly overeaten last night and needed to work some of that off.  I knew I was tired though when it didn't get any easier the longer I walked like it had on previous days.  And the wind, which for the last couple days has just been really nice and helped keep me cool, was blowing pretty good and I was having to fight against it on my way back home.  When I got to the point where I had jogged the last couple times, I honestly wasn't sure if I could do it.  But I decided I should try.  If I couldn't make it to the point I'd been shooting for, that was okay, at least I'd made the attempt.  I made it, barely.  I have this thing where if I know I've done something before and I know I can do it, I push myself to do it.  It's kind of like a competition with myself.  When I got to that point, I just wanted to collapse.  It was so hard for me to keep walking and start focusing on controlling my breathing.

As I struggled to keep walking, I passed a couple of girls walking in the opposite direction.  Just before I passed them, one of the girls started doing this shuffling jog and then acted like she was going to collapse from exhaustion.  As I passed them, the other girl looked at me and said something with this weird amused look on her face and then they both burst out laughing.  Since I had my earbuds in and my music on, I couldn't hear anything they said but it seemed like they were making fun of me.  After I passed them, I happened to glance back and my suspicion was pretty well confirmed as I saw the first girl point back at me and do the same shuffling jog before she and her friend started laughing again.  I've had girls make fun of me before and I've heard the cruel remarks made behind my back.  When that's happened, I would generally get depressed and seriously binge because their comments hurt so much.  That's how I started to feel.  And then very appropriately I had a song come on that I just added to my workout playlist the other day that totally changed how I felt.  The song's called Wings by the British group Little Mix.  The song goes, "Mama told me not to waste my life, she said spread your wings my little butterfly, don't let what they say keep you up at night, and they can't detain you, 'cause wings are made to fly.  And we don't let nobody bring us down.  No matter what you say – it won't hurt me.  Don't matter if I fall from the sky, these wings are made to fly."  It's not a song I've listened to a ton, but it's super upbeat which is why I added it.  In this case, not only did the beat help me keep a steady pace, but the lyrics made me realize that those girls' actions and words shouldn't affect me.  If they want to be mean and make fun of someone who's making an effort to get healthy, then that's their problem, not mine and it shouldn't weight me down or discourage me.

That song so encouraged and so changed my attitude that by the time I decided that I would

again jog that last little bit to get home, I was feeling much better, not just mentally but also physically.  And after I'd jogged into the garage and kicked my shoes off to ease my aching feet, I made my decision that I was going to stick this out and keep working.

I'm planning on making Saturday my day to weigh in because it's not a day that I'm going to generally be working on.  I'm not expecting some drastic loss of weight tomorrow.  In fact, I've prepared myself for the fact that I may have gained or stayed the same.  Whatever the scale says tomorrow morning, it's not going to stop me from continuing my journey.  Because this is MY journey, my decision, not anyone else's and I'm not going to let other people's words or actions discourage or hamper me.  I've got this.  I'm only now starting to realize how hard this is going to be, but I'm also finding a strength in myself that I never knew I had and I am up to the challenge.  The decision's been made, now I've just got to keep it up.