Right around the time we joined the YMCA, several people told me that I might experience something akin to a "honeymoon phase" when it came to working out. I took that to mean that I'd love it in the beginning but then I'd come down off of my my high and it would be hell from there on out. Perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit but that's what I took it to mean.
To be honest, the first day I went to the gym, I crept in slowly, hoping no one would notice the grossly fat lady in the threadbare sweats and baggy white tee-shirt look tentatively around her, almost as if she was stepping foot on Mars for the first time. I think I reached out and touched an elliptical machine and withdrew my hand so quickly that someone might have interpreted that as having burned my hand. Once I finally chose a machine and got on, I overdid it. I spent two hours in the gym and about 45 in the pool, followed by 20 minutes in the hot tub. When I got in my car to drive home I felt like I was going to pass out. But the dumbest thing? I was almost goofy-happy about having survived it and was looking forward to going back the next day.
Then, when I got home, my thighs gave me the first indication that I might need some help getting out of the car and into the house. Had you been standing right there, I would have sworn that hauling my big ass and legs- legs that suddenly felt like they weighed a thousand pounds a piece up the porch stairs and into the house, was going to kill me.
Once I got into the house I was afraid that if I sat down, I'd never get back up again, but that if I didn't sit down, that I'd collapse under the sheer weight of my own body and the intense pain shooting through every single cell. I'm pretty sure my finger nails were even screaming out in protest. Little did I know that when I got up the next morning, what I was feeling would be dwarfed.
Yet I went to the gym again and again. I never experienced what I thought that "honeymoon phase" was supposed to feel like. Instead, it was intense fear that everyone was laughing at me and that at some point, because I didn't know what I was doing, I was going to injur myself, or maybe break a piece of gym equipment.
Well then Gaby came down with pink eye and I missed two days in a row, leading into a weekend and something came up and that made 4 days I didn't go to the gym. I was on my last week of treatment for my blood clots and the blood thinners I was on made me sicker than a dog. So I took a week off and let my body recover.
Then Gaby contracted the mother of all Kindergarten bugs . . . the one where they don't just get a nasty cold but a nasty cold, high fever, ear ache, throat infection, vomiting, and pink eye, again just for the hell of it. Granted, she's not ill very often, but this time around was a doozy.
So there went another several days of not going to the gym.
I noticed something though, about the time I spent in the gym. Despite feeling like every single muscle in my body was crying out in agony, I did feel better. I had more energy. When I did finally get to sleep at night, I slept far better and with half the Melatonin that I normally take. It took me a while but I realized that what I had been feeling was probably that infamous "honeymoon phase."
Now I've gone and ruined it all by not staying consistent.
What's worse is that I'm not sure I used Gaby as an excuse to not prioritize spending time in the gym, or at least getting in a few laps on the indoor track and in the pool? While she was in fact very ill, there's no reason why Gareth couldn't have done just as good a job taking care of her as I do. Is my desire to control everything around me, except me, once again going to derail my chances of getting my life back on track?
I don't know if all of this is a lack of me making myself a priority or taking advantage of a sick child and using her as a convenient excuse. I know myself well enough to know that should she have become sicker, I'd have kicked myself black and blue because I wasn't there.
I know for a fact that it's no longer enough to just change what I eat. I have to get up and move. Put concerted effort into moving . . .not just around the house with a mop, or a broom, or a vacuum. But for hours, at the gym. I'm not saying I don't feel a lot better than I did when I weighed 507lbs. Believe me I do. However, I don't feel as good as I should. There's no use trying to lie to you, or more importantly, to myself, about it.
I have to figure out how to deal with the emotional noise that keeps getting in my way; the same noise that prevents me from making this a priority and putting as much effort into working out as I do what I'm eating. I have to learn to deal with the fear and not let the fear deal with me. At some point I'm either going to realize that perhaps others are laughing at me, but when it's all said and done, I'll be the one laughing at the old me, the one who didn't think she could do anything, who believed all the negative things that others said about her and the things she said about herself.
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I've decided to go back to the way I had been doing things before I let the comment a reader left, about my "silly food photographs" plant a huge seed of negativity in my head. I'm going to start photographing every single meal again and posting the "snapshots" the way I was. Once I do actually get the blog moved, it won't all be on a single page but still easily accessible. I have spent far too many days sitting here wishing I'd taken a photo of what I had made to eat because it ended up being really good! To a great degree, it also kept me accountable. To myself. To you. It was a good thing, but I let the negativity get to me. That was a mistake. To that end, a lot more food photos are around the bend. Hell, maybe I'll check out a book on food photography from the library and some might even come out half-decent! Imagine that!
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I'm not sure when, but probably in the next 6 weeks, maybe sooner, I'm going to be doing another VISA gift card giveaway. I had so much fun with the last one and wished I had lots more to give away. I wish I could give more than one away at a time. There are so many people who I know would be grateful. I wish I had hundreds to give out. Who knows though, right? We never know what the universe has in store for us.
On that note, I'm going to sign off for the night and lay my weary head down. Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday season so far. What are you asking Santa for, this year?
