elections and weight loss

I thought it was hilarious that our local news anchors had been wearing purple on election night, as that represented the mix of voters in Colorado - we're 50-50, but Denver is blue and the most populated, therefore our state swings blue (lately - the state was traditionally red for a long time). In any case, that night the anchors cracked me up with their representation of our population's political views.

I was pretty sure I'd wake up on Tuesday to Hillary Clinton being the president-elect. I was so shocked that the winner - by a landslide (electorally) was DONALD TRUMP! I can't say I was much less worried about the future of the country with him at the head, so I figured Wednesday morning would be rough (for me) either way.

What I was not prepared for was the HATRED I saw - from many dear friends, and on both sides of the fence. The hate. The anger. The gloating. The racist acts and remarks that are happening. The despair that women are still second-class citizens, and minorities are not citizens at all. The vilifying entire swaths of our population based on the way they executed their right to choose in a voting booth. I am hoping the country is just under an election hangover. Truly, and that we can go back to being our nice, different thinking selves after this week. But I was so, so worried all this week that we were such a mean society, and a heartless country without empathy. In some ways, this is true... and yet.

DH and I were folding laundry as I was lamenting our societal woes, and he said "WE are not mean!" He's right. We're not. But then I said "Well, I got really mad at that girl on the trail and yelled in her face (not on purpose, but that is how it happened because I was on a bike) and I feel really badly about that - I AM mean!" And he says... "Well, we're not perfect, either."  I love that man.

This is important. I can take a bad thing I do and FIXATE on it for days. DAYS! This happened four days ago and I was still beating myself up for it. An old trainer of mine told me that I was really hard on myself and that it seemed I liked to find reasons to mentally whip myself. The Texas Night Massacre happened this summer. I'm still not in a place where I can just LOVE ME. But I'm working on it, and I WILL GET THERE.

But enough heavy stuff, how about some fun? So this is my first full week with MyFitnessPal tracking and I lost... 0.6 pounds. I will take it. I did have one night where I went over. The good news is, I took off my grey work dress pants without undoing the buttons or zipper - look at me changing my own life over here!!!

And I'm also going to share what I posted on WWConnect this week... it's kind of the summarized version of all this above. Things are happening, for better or for worse. The only person who can change that or truly affect that, the only person who can make us happy and be in charge of our life and our outcome is us... so let's GO GET IT.

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My post yesterday on Connect:

Isn't this quote the truth!! HELLO, connecty friends! I have been super busy with work and working out and tracking on MyFitnessPal. Oh and elections... WOW my Facebook feed was full of hate (from both sides of the aisle) and I got really disappointed with how mean our society has become. I understand people are frustrated or happy but really... I was very saddened overall by We The People. But maybe people just needed a few days to regroup. I wish everyone behaved like they did here on Connect!! So in very positive news, I just took off my work dress pants without undoing the buttons or zippers. SUPER NSV!!!! Meeting is tomorrow morning, scale should be down but did I mention I REMOVED MY DRESS PANTS WITHOUT UNDOING THE BUTTONS OR ZIPPERS?!?!? 👖🎉 Look at me just changing my own life over here! Truly, all, I am so sorry our country had such a difficult day on Wednesday. Now let's all go out and be the change we want to see. We can change our lives and have a real positive impact on the lives of the people around us... so LET'S DO!