Thursday, January 28, 2010

Bad decisions and good reflections

Today, after eating my bowl of cereal for breakfast and a Starbucks Red Velvet Cupcake for lunch, I decided to get on the scale before I got in the shower. I'm not sure if what I saw was a greater surprise, or if I should be more surprised that less than 5 minutes after eating a cupcake my sick sense of internal humor said "huh, I wonder what you weigh now?".

It was 199.2. While there was a time not so horribly long ago that number would have been cringe inspiring, not so much any more. Now - I was not so secretly excited at seeing a "1" at the beginning of the number.

Then, while driving to work I ate a handful of Cheetos. Dinner was a safe frozen choice - but of course that was followed up by a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and a small Almond Joy around 1:30am as I was starting to get hungry while I finished checking off time sheets at work. Then when I got home at almost 3am, I was so hungry I heated up some sloppy joe leftovers to make a sandwich.

I HAVE to start tracking my food again somehow. Not sure how and when and where in the world I'm going to scrape up that last bit of determination to do it consistently - but if I was tracking there's no way I would have made most of those decisions. I would have instead been driven to do more in hopes of seeing further decreases on the scale. Now, it's all about what's easy and convenient.

I feel like I'm getting closer but I'm just not quite there yet. Like I'm waiting for some kind of push. Or sign.

Funny, as I typed that line something hit me. Some of my favorite lines in a song are by Steven Curtis Chapman and they all but screamed out at me so I must be "supposed" to share them here.

"You're waiting for lighting.
A sign that it's time for a change.
You're listening for thunder
while He quietly whispers your name."

Hmmm... maybe I have been doing that after all. Listening for the thunder. Waiting for the neon flashing sign. But I'm so busy waiting for the big one, I'm missing all the small ones.

More to think about as I head off to sleep my funny little sleep schedule. Time to dream about healthy decisions!

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Life on the Naughty List

I have been a bad bad girl. I have been living on drive through and pizzas and chocolate and starches and processed foods. I have not been drinking enough water. I have gone two days before realizing I'd yet to eat a veggie - since french fries, ketchup and lettuce on a taco does not constitute fruits and veggies no matter what our school lunch system claims.

I've been busy. But isn't that everyone's excuse? I know it isn't a good one.

I'm down to one job, but I'm averaging about 13 hours a day there so it might as well be two. I am being pretty good at my "lunch" there as I bring a healthier frozen meal, but when leaving there at 8 and 9pm and knowing I should be in bed by 10:30 that drive through starts to look better and better.

The real problem I know is that I've lost that fire. I used to be passionate about it. I used to count my calories and care about every little piece of intake. I used to really, really care. I'm not quite sure what happened to that spark. I know I need to get it back, but I don't know how. I saw 206 on the scale the other day but instead of getting angry at myself and resolving to make better decisions there was this feeling of "it figures" and found myself mentally resolving to not get on the scale for awhile. I will say that I did a quick mental check on myself and was able to do a bit of a "take back" where I repeated some good things and reminded myself that I had the power to change it. It worked for the next 10 minutes, but that night when I was leaving work at 9pm I grabbed Burger King. I don't really even like Burger King that much (except for a hot steaming cheeseburger on a cold day - their simple cheeseburgers really are quite good) and yet I got a meal and ate the whole thing. I felt like crap that night and worse the next day. The only good thing I can say about that experience is that I've sworn off of Burger King for awhile.

On Monday I begin working the night shift, which I'll be doing until July. For now, that means about 3pm until Midnight. Of course, I'll have to go in a few hours early or I'll be there until 3am. While I know this will be difficult, I'm going to work to make this an opportunity for change. If I can maintain a healthy breakfast, manage some sort of decent lunch at home, and just bring in those frozen healthier meals for dinner - I might just have a chance. Right now it's a concept and not a full fledged plan, but it's the best I've been able to do for awhile so I'm holding on to it.

Just when I'm starting to feel better, I realize I've been writing most of this while staring at the Dark Hershey kisses sitting on my desk and thinking about how I'm going to eat them when I'm done. Sigh.....

Time to go get a glass of water and walk away from the chocolate.