Seize the Day

"Do it, it's not too late. You can totally make it."
"No, you're stronger than this. Prove it to yourself."
"Another slip up is not going to make that much of a difference. You know you want it."
"But you don't need it. You're not hungry in the least. You can resist this."
That's the dialogue that was running through my head tonight as I sat in my car in the Popejoy parking structure trying to merge into a never ending line of cars. I'd just seen the musical Newsies which I'd been wanting to see for several years now and had been totally blown away by it. It wasn't just good, it was amazing. And watching it, I was reminded of how much I'd wanted to be an actress, to be on stage like that. But I can't sing, I can't dance, and I'm a mediocre actress at best. And if those didn't knock me out of the running, my weight certainly did. There's not any room for overweight actresses unless you're also a comedian for the most part, which I certainly am not.

So walking out to my car, I felt exhilarated and on cloud nine but I also felt depressed. Watching the show, I couldn't help but thinking how amazing it must be to be up on that stage. I haven't acted in over two years and I really miss it, but I don't see the point in auditioning when I know I won't get a part. My weight just automatically rules me out. Climbing into my car, I just started to cry. I just felt overwhelmed. I don't know where the emotion came from, but suddenly there it was and I started thinking about how much I loved to act. The practical side of me immediately popped up to remind me that I gave up my dream of becoming an actress and I was now in school to become a vet tech, a stable, solid career choice. The thing is, I'm not into science and math and all that, I just love animals. I've always leaned towards the more creative side of things, writing, drawing, singing, dancing, etc., none of which I'm particularly good at, but I enjoy nonetheless. But while I might not enjoy science and math as much, I've done very well in my classes. And did I mention that I have way more chance of success with this career?

Balance Is Key

Sorry for the long delay in updating, it's been a crazy, what, week and a half, almost two weeks? Jeez, I need to get better at setting aside time to blog. In any case, I'm still alive and I'm still working to get healthier. The biggest thing I've been striving for since I last posted is balance; working to be healthy, but also not feel like I'm depriving myself. I found out the hard way on Memorial Day that working out is great, but I need to be careful to pace myself. I joined an hour and fifteen minute group workout that morning that turned out to be very high intensity. I was exhausted after it was done, but my trainer happened to catch me as I was leaving and asked if I wanted to do our session then rather than having to come back later that afternoon. Despite feeling tired from the workout I'd just completed, I said sure because not having to drive back and forth was appealing, despite the fact I live a grand total of five minutes away from the gym. We did a fairly easy session but I went home feeling shaky and totally drained, laid down, and then promptly had to make a run for the bathroom to throw up. I was miserable. I felt like crap for the rest of the day and worst of all I didn't really feel like going to gym for the rest of that week.

The fact that I'm actually enjoying working out is awesome, but I have to be careful to not overdo it and make myself sick and discourage myself. With the heat, it takes a huge effort to get myself out the door, I don't need any other reasons to make me second guess going to the gym. I did still make it to the gym a couple times last week, but definitely not every day. And it wasn't all just lack of energy that made me choose not to go, I was really struggling with the heat and with headaches and not feeling great and I really didn't want to make myself feel worse since I do have work and classes to focus on.

She Became A Butterfly...

Okay so maybe I'm not at the point where I could be considered a butterfly, but I'm working my way there.  I wanted to share this quote because I happened to come across it looking for another quote and I just really love it because I find it, personally, very relatable.  I feel like I've gone through a lot of darkness with my depression and eating disorders and all the other "fun" stuff life has thrown at me and I feel like I'm finally coming out of that darkness.  I just thought it was a really beautiful quote.

So one thing I wanted to mention really quickly that I realized I really didn't get into in my last post was my eating disorders.  People generally figure that those who are overweight are overweight because they're pigs and eat too much.  In my case, that's true because I have a binge eating disorder.  Basically what it means is that I overeat a lot even when I'm not hungry and I feel like absolute crap afterward, both physically and emotionally.  It was because of this that I also started purging.  While that hasn't been as big an issue for me as the binge eating, it's still really unhealthy.  But I've been doing way better with it since I started eating more regular meals which I think is awesome.  I haven't purged in at least a couple months and when I have the urge to eat, I'm going to shoot to grab something healthy.

I had that issue last night.  My best friend and I went out to dinner and had a good sized dinner plus dessert, but after he left, I still wanted to eat something.  I honestly was not hungry at all, but I wanted food.  So I had some grapes which turned out to be rather sour and pretty much put me off food for the rest of the night.  Not exactly what I had in mind, but it worked and I was pleased that I hadn't either gone out and picked something up or rummaged through the house for something unhealthy.

The hardest part with the food is just battling the bad habits I've built up over the years.  I'll be driving around and see a Dion's and think, Oooh, a pizza sounds amazing right now!  Or I'll pass a Dairy Queen and think of how good a Blizzard sounds.  And then I try to rationalize with myself that, oh, I haven't had thus and such in several weeks and now I can't have it so I should get it as a last meal, kind of thing.  I've been really struggling with that, but so far I've only had one slip up.  More on that in a bit.  It's a daily battle, but I'm finding that overall I'm doing pretty well.