I am digging deep

I have been struggling for almost two weeks now with my diet. I LOVE to eat. As I've mentioned I really enjoy both healthy AND unhealthy food. I also know that I am an "all or nothing" kind of person. Once I start eating junk I just don't stop. I become obsessed with the next junk food. For two weeks I worked out like crazy and then ruined it with bad eating. This week has been a disaster. Circumstances beyond my control have led me to not be able to work out as much. I'm still eating terribly. And today I felt awful in my own skin. I feel fat. I feel like doing nothing. I realized tonight that I have watched more TV in the last week than I watched for the entire month of June! This is not good.
I'm pretty unhappy and I think it's mostly because I am not living the way that I want to live. I am not being the person that I know I really am.
Tonight I did a really tough workout with a friend. I felt both incredibly strong and miserably weak at various points of the workout. All of these emotions started hitting me. I started thinking, "THIS is who I am." The real me is a strong woman who loves to push herself to new levels in the gym and reach new goals. The real me puts on her jeans and feels GREAT! The real me keeps needing to get new jeans in smaller sizes because she has a goal and she is focused! I really want to get back to the real me. It's time to stop eating the crap. I'm ready to get out of this vicious cycle of eating.

I had a mini-breakthrough on Sunday that I have been trying to work through all week. It's not pretty. But I need to just say it out loud. Maybe then I can let it go. Sometimes, a lot of the times, when I eat bad I am in a moment of sadness, anger, frustration, dissappointment, or abandonment and this panic comes over me. In that moment I am in such an ugly place of dispair and all I want is something good. Something that for that moment will make me feel good. Food is what I turn to. I know that ultimately the foods I grab are bad for me but in that moment, they taste good and I can focus on that for a second and escape my feelings. It's a pretty ugly thing. I have tons of friends who say, "Call me!" but that doesn't help in the moment. If I call you then I will have to talk about it and at that moment I don't want to talk about it. I want to escape it. Being practical or logical doesn't help either. In the moment there is no such thing as logical or practical.
Ultimately, this is a great sin that I am battling. My trust MUST be in the Lord. In those moments of despair it is Him that I should be turning to. It's so obvious but that reality has just occured to me. So maybe that is where I need to start. I CAN do ALL THINGS through CHRIST who STRENGTHENS me.

There . . . I said it. I don't feel better yet . . . :-) But that is okay. One day, one moment at a time.

Some Things I Know

1. Losing weight and maintaining your weight is 80% food consumption. I proved that this week . . . again.

2. I LOVE salty, fatty, greasy food. Not all of it, but a lot of it. It is sooooo yummy.

3. I also LOVE fresh, colorful, healthy food. I love preparing it and serving it to my husband, and savoring each bite.

4. The afore mentioned salty, fatty, greasy food leads to me feeling cranky, irritable, and sick to my stomache. It also leads to more bathroom time, oh joy.

5. The afore mentioned fresh, colorful, healthy food make me feel GOOD! Not cranky or irritable, but proud of myself for eating so well.

6. I don't know how to get it through my thick skull that I need to stay away fromt the salty, fatty, greasy food because it just isn't worth it.

7. I am tired of feeling cranky, irritable, and sick to my stomache. I think I am done with that for the time being.

8. I'm pretty sure that I spelled at I spelled a hole bunch of words wrong in this post. I am not a speller . . .

Aaaaargh!

So the FWSW contest I was helping with ended on Saturday. It was a great 15 weeks. I lost another 36 pounds, bringing my total for the year to 66. Not too shabby!

But . . . it is crazy how the contest ending can totally mess me up. I had this great routine going and now it is GONE! It is like the bottom fellow out on me. I am suddenly just so overwhelmed by my life! I don't know how to get everything done! (Before I was just not getting anything done!) School starts soon, 4-H is in one week and we have done almost NOTHING, and I'm not getting my food prep done, thus my eating is BAD, BAD, BAD!

The one thing that IS in place is my workout schedule. I flipped out a little on Monday because I felt like I was going to loose control of THAT, too. But, I have a great friend to work out with three mornings a week, I signed up for a class at the Y two mornings a week, I work out with someone who really pushes me two evenings a week, and P90X is on the way to throw in there as well.

I am going to get through this next week and the 4-H craziness, then one more week of baseball. I am determined to do as little extra curricular as possible in August and really focus on getting my life organized and back on track!

It's All About the Journey . . . Right?

When I began this year all I wanted to do was get back to 200. Somewhere along the way I started wanting to go so much further than that. There was a time when I thought I could never get below 160. Well, now that I am at 180 I want so much more for myself! I see myself getting to 140. As in, by January 1, 2010 I see it! I believe it is possible!
Suddenly I am this lady who "eats clean" on a daily basis and is unwilling to buy foods with high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils in them. I make quinoa for supper and sweet potatoes, broccoli, onions, garlic, asparagus, and zuchini are things I eat almost daily! (I still struggle with eating right all of the time. My dear friend Robin, who is so WISE says that I am an all-or-nothing kinda gal and I know that she is right. But I am working on that.)
I am an exercise fanatic, finding my favorite activity of the day to be horribly difficult workouts at the gym! I ran a half-marathon last week in 2 1/2 hours!
Crazy, crazy, crazy! I'm likin' these changes and just hope that I can remember how awesome this feels on that day in the not-so-distant future when I wake up depressed and hungry and ready to eat an entire batch of cookies with ice cream!