you look amazing

Five people have told me this in the past two weeks. I am trying my darnedest to agree with them. It is HARD for me to wrap my head around You Look Like a Normal Human Being when, for most of my life, I was overweight and even obese.

I have been trying to bike, swim and lift weights regularly. I have been trying to eat less crap (and I'm pretty successful at that, 95% of the time). I have been trying to acknowledge what I love about this spectacular disease-free body I inhabit. And by trying, what is happening is that I am ACTUALLY DOING that stuff, and tracking, too! And the DOING is definitely getting results.

There have been a few incidents of too many chips or too many drinks or a skipped workout. But those are rare and OKAY when they happen. I actually started to sort of freak myself out on Friday because I was really exhausted and went to bed late on Thursday night, and getting up for a workout seemed like the last thing I wanted to do because I was over-tired. So I decided the best thing I could do for myself was get some rest - and I slept in. And I felt amazing when I woke up! I consciously chose to get rest rather than workout, and guess what happened next? I moved on with the day like a normal human being. I didn't beat myself up. I acknowledged that I FELT BETTER because after last week I really did need the rest.

So I'm doing what I need to do, and if the scale isn't moving that's OK because the comments on how I look are coming freely. I think it's great that others are noticing and I like their comments, but the only person whose acceptance I really need is MY OWN. And I am working diligently on that. I can say my legs look great, my shoulders look great, I look like a normal person (maybe even a slightly muscular woman?) in recent photos I have seen of myself. I love riding my bike. I love going to the pool. I love the results that weight training gets me. I love chocolate cake and pizza, and I still eat eat both but in moderation and I truly do not feel deprived.

This is happening, people... and the person I have to convince THE MOST that they do indeed look amazing is myself, but THAT is happening, too! :)

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Pic is DH and I at a wedding last weekend. He's one of the five people who commented!!! 

dogs and cats, living together, MASS HYSTERIA....

So. I do this thing where I think something bad is happening (usually something bad IS actually happening) and then my mind thinks that I am the CAUSE of this bad thing (usually I am NOT the cause of Bad Thing, just a witness to it) and then my mind takes itself on a joyride that just SNOWBALLS really really quickly and suddenly the bad thing is a terrible thing is a horrible crippling soul-sucking mass-destruction-inflicting THING that I have created (but in reality, I have NOT created it) and now I - and everyone near me - cannot escape.

This is destructive. And exhausting. And definitely not good for me nor those who are close to me. Luckily I've had some counseling around this, so I do have some tools but sometimes, man, that joyride just starts and I'm on it, even though I definitely don't want to be.

So that is what happened on Sunday. And I figured it out fairly quickly, so the carnage was minimal. But, there was carnage. I had to do a lot of apologizing - to myself, to my husband, to my doggy love who was nice enough to stick rightbymyside the whole time because he knew I was upset. (Actually doggy love needs no apologies, he just got lots of free pets. But still, I felt badly as he followed me around.) And I felt really silly because even though Bad Thing happened, the resulting fallout was purely a ridiculous incident of my own creation.

As this Bad Thing was happening, I didn't work out, I didn't track, and today the scale is up and I'm sad I let that happen. I am sure it will go down some, but a three-day detour is not really great for getting to my goals. This type of terrible thinking is definitely something I need to learn to deal with a little more quickly - I'm working on that.

I can't remember the last time I let my head take it to a completely unwarranted DEFCON-5 type of level and I really hope it doesn't happen again anytime soon. My saving grace about this episode is that I recognized it for what it was within a few hours (as opposed to the DAYS it usually takes me to figure out what's really going on). But even so, I still self-destructed and it took a while to clean up the chaos and get myself back on track - in several areas of my life, not just with weight loss. Today I'm back and I think it's important that I at least acknowledge that a) this happened and b) I'm getting better about dealing with it and c) I've still got work to do - but I can, will, and AM doing that work.

Keep on keepin' on, friends. :)