I don't really know what to make of myself lately. I am a living, breathing contradiction. Yesterday I walked 10,448 steps. That is a personal best for me. I've had two days over 9000 but until yesterday had not cracked the 10,000 step mark. Hooray & yahoo!! Not so fast!! I got several of those steps eating a girl scout cookie! What in the world?!?!? Why would anyone in their right mind eat a cookie while exercising. I don't know.
This isn't the first time that I've done something good and then something not so good in rapid succession. In all honesty, I've had a hard time getting on track and staying on track since Valentine's Day. I really, truly believed that I would successfully pre-start the 17 Day Diet on Monday. It should not have been hard at all to add in a couple of yogurts each day. That was really the only major change I was going to make this week. Next week, I was going to narrow the protein choices and officially start.
Those two items are the biggest difference in the way I eat now anyway. It should have been easy. Instead, I have been all over the map with my eating. There haven't been those epic mental battles about should I or shouldn't I. I just do it. I think what alarms me the most is my attitude about it. It is just an "Oh well, life happens, move on." Maybe that is a good attitude, maybe not. It is foreign to me.
The old me would have towed the line without flaw. I would be proudly polishing my bright, shiny armor thinking about just how good I am. How I can do anything I set my mind to and lots of self righteous stuff like that. And, if I discovered one teeny tiny chink in that armour, I'd be all to pieces. All I could ever see was that one chink, no matter how small. I'd do my best to pound it out, or worse, cover it up.
I'm not so much like that any more. I'm much more forgiving of myself which is a great thing. But, I don't know where that ends and giving myself carte blanche begins. Now that armour is so dented that it looks like it has been in a hailstorm. I'm looking for pretty patterns in the dents rather than trying to pound them out, and I'm certainly not covering them up.
I hope that this is a more 'normal' way of thinking, rather than the all or nothing way I've thought my whole life. There are good things happening. I ate A girl scout cookie while walking, not a A SLEEVE of girl scout cookies. I like myself a little bit better these days, if that makes any sense. I like not being so uptight. I like not being so controlled. I'm hoping that this anything goes type feeling I'm having right now is really just seems that way because it is so different. I don't know what it feels like to relax a bit without going head first into the deep end the other way.
Tell me...am I right or am I deluding myself?
Lessons Learned
3 years ago
I think this sounds a lot like major growth. First of all, you are adding one big step already by attempting 10,000 daily steps. When I started that as part of a walking study six years ago, it seemed totally overwhelming and I was already a recreational hiker. It took probably close to a year before getting those steps in became second nature. I began that study in July of 2006 and it wasn't until October of that same year that I even remotely began working on my weight again. If I remember correctly, I actually GAINED weight between July and October of that year most likely due to increased hunger because of increased exercise. But once it all came together in October, the walking had become a habit and I was ready to start working on the weight in conjunction with the walking. And I never looked back. It took 1 year, but by the end of 2007, I was 65 pounds lighter and the walking was an ingrained habit that holds to this day.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the vigilance! You are going to do this and when you finish, BOTH habits will be a natural as brushing your teeth!
This reminds me of myself lately. Allowing some notion of "normal" eating as a more relaxed approach. Rather than my all or nothing thing that hasn't worked so well. I agree... not being uptight is good. Relaxed is good.
ReplyDelete