Sometimes for me, just one bad day is all it takes to toss good habits out of the window. Then I am left with the dreaded let down....All the negative thoughts fill my head....
"Today I forgot how to take care of myself and life feels awful" - x - Today, I felt unglued...without direction and lost" - x- "Today I wanted to eat everything bad and not feel a drop of guilt about it" - x- "Today every little thing felt less like 'little' and more like an enormous undertaking"
Staring down at the tub of ice cream in my hands, spoon poised for a nose dive deep into it, my past came out of nowhere, revisiting me with old messages of temptation: "whats one spoonful of ice cream? Who cares if I dont eat clean? Why bother? Nobody is looking anyway! Besides ice cream is delicious and I deserve it!" The more I stared at that ice cream, the further away I got from the discipline I normally carry in me and the harder it became to put the spoon down and walk away. It's easy to forget sometimes that I was once clinically overweight, with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and my doctor nagging me to lose some weight and stop smoking. Pictures don't lie either. My old habits still haunt me when my guard is down. All it takes is a bad day!
As some of you may know, I recently started the transition from working 25-30 hours per week as a personal trainer to working double that once I was forced to find another job to supplement my income and provide me with the health benefits that were necessary. It has been a difficult and often stressful transition for me and trying to keep everything together in my daily life is often a daunting task. My mind races with the idea of which meals to pack and how many changes of clothes I am going to need to get me through my 12-16 hour work days. Most days, Though I have learned to adjust as the weeks go on, on particular days I feel my mood becoming dangerously black. With three jobs under my wing, some days the cards I am dealt are not the ones I had expected, and yet I still have to play them! The mistake I often found myself making was eating my meals in the midst of stressful situations, rather than taking a second or two to calm down and reassess what really was going on and how to deal with it. Even lettuce leaves and rice cakes can land like stones in your stomach during a difficult time!
A couple of weeks ago I was in the midst of a pretty disappointing day. The people around me that frustrated me didnt even make an attempt at an apology and I had worked hard to hide my frustrations with them. Things were not going the way I had planned at all, but I carried on with my day the best I could regardless. All day, I kept asking myself all sorts of questions..."Did I disappoint my mom?" "Would I have ever done that to my friends?" "Am I working hard enough?". Nothing stings worse than a let down, and boy, was I in the middle of a let down! I learned a long time ago to do more than what is expected of me, so that I dont become someone's big fat disappointment. I let everything get to me that day! As I drove home at the end of the day, the disappointment of the day ate at my stomach and by the time I pulled into the driveway, I was an absolute mess. My stomach was screaming at me, I was bloated and unpleasant...and to top it off I had a headache! That was all it took for me to skip my workout and dive right into the ice cream...followed by the cookies my mom had stashed in the basement and half of a jar of peanut butter. My best habits fell like a row of dominoes...one right after the other. My mood was no match for the neopolitan ice cream starting at me from the front of the freezer.
After every indulgence, there is always a price to pay. Halfway through that binge, I regained control. The ice cream went back into the freezer and the spoon landed in the sink. I went right up to my mother, who had just made a few choice comments that made me cry only a few hours before. I told her that I was disappointed and sad about what she said to me that day. I sent a message to a coworker who had neglected to do an important task they had promised me that caused me great stress. My friend who was supposed to bring me something to the gym and brought only excuses also got a piece of my mind. These people had let me down and there is nothing worse than a let down. They needed to know so they would understand how I felt and that I was upset. They also needed to know that I still loved them, even through the anger and disappointment of my day.
In my old life, I was never one to stand up for myself. I took every harsh word or action as if I deserved it. These days, I dont take it because if I own all of the negativity that comes with life, I make myself sick and binge....I dont need that any more. After talking to my mom and sending messages to my friend and coworker, I focosed on the good habits I had worked so hard to follow these last three years. They keep my head in the right place, these habits that others have come to expect from me.
...for u PB...
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