Epiphanies

I drew that line in the sand last week and said it was time to clean up my eating.  I did fairly well on Wednesday night.  (My breakfast and lunch had already done me in calorie wise but the evening I did pretty good).   Thursday night I fell apart.  Sheetz.....pepperoni pretzel melt and of course I couldn't keep it at just that.  I also ordered a fried appetizer sampler.   Tater tots, fried cheese and fried macaroni and cheese bites.   And I grabbed a package of Reeces Cups.  (At least it was the small package and not the king size!).    On Friday I would like to say that it got better....but uhhh no.  I had some cheese puffs and while it was a smaller bag....that bag was still 3 servings, and I ate them ALL!   Saturday I didn't do well either......hey, we stopped at a local fair and had fair food for lunch!
On sunday I started to turn it around though!    And while I'm not being 'perfect' in my eating. I am doing really well!  (Perfection only sets one up for failure, so I'm just aiming for 'good')

I have been active!  Lots of walking...and even some hiking!

My running.....well my work schedule kept me from running on Monday and Tuesday this week...so I am just starting to work on my weekly miles.  Not a biggie.  I ran this morning and managed 2.42 (not bad after a long mountainous hike yesterday).   That leaves me with 6.8 miles to run by the end of the month to meet my 40 mile goal.  Piece of cake!   

And I showed a nice loss!   Last week my weight was up and I wasn't expecting it...I think a lot was water weight and just what I had eaten the night before.  This morning I woke up thirsty and feared my weigh in results.  But I was down....

So on Sunday I had an epiphany.   I'm not going to go into it too deeply here. But I saw a commercial for a car.   I started to think about how my car is 12 years old and nearing 200,000 miles.  I am very blessed that it runs smoothly and well. (It's a litttle loud right now but that will be fixed when I get new tires and replace the control arm.....I'm just holding off on the tires to suck as much life out of them as possible...before winter for sure!)   It saddened me to realize that while I work full time, I struggle to get by...and I'm not really getting by.  I can't afford a new car (or a used one).  I can't afford an apartment on my own (Thank you mom and dad for the roof over my head!).   It's a struggle.     Once I went to that place in my head, I started to really delve into how my 'career' ended up here.  From teaching and what went wrong there (Yeah, I always get a little melancholy at the beginning of the school year) to various jobs that had I known what I know now I would have made my career instead of a 'job'.  To my dead end job that I currently have.   It wasn't pretty.  
At the same time, I started to think about other aspects of my life  such as relationships......my marriage.  Pride that I got out of a bad situation.  My relationship wtih Jason.  Happiness and joy to experience what I am experiencing with him.   
I thought about all the dreams and hopes that I had for my future.....some of them gone forever...some of them being revived.  (Thank you Jason).
And of course my coursing and weaving through these revelations and feelings were thoughts about my weight.   How I wished I had tried to lose the weight when I was 18 so that college would have been a different experience.   How I wish I would have tired to lose weight at 25 so that such and such would have been different.   And maybe losing at 30 so that I could have had kids. (Yes, sad to have that dream die but in reality a blessing when the marriage ended).  So much time wasted....and I know that life would have been different had I lost the weight.  Maybe not because the world would have treated me differently (Although I fully believe that some opportunities did pass me by because of my weight)  but more or less because my confidence has many times been tied to my weight...the higher the weight, the lower the confidence.  
I vowed to turn my life into a different direction.  The job thing is a priority......I am waiting for one or two things to be settled before I really delve into looking. (My father will most likely be having surgery for his cancer ...and that will take place in Baltimore, an hour away....so I will want and need to use some sick time to be there for that and to help get my mother back and forth while he is in the hospital down there.....kinda of hard to do at a new job).  The other thing?   This weight.   I'm tired of it.  I want the confident and vibrant woman that I became when I was thinner back!  I want to live!  I want to be healthy!  I want want want!
So my decisions made, I carried on with the day.   I don't know if Jason sensed my unrest or my thoughts or what but he started a long conversation about my weight and the war I have waged upon it.  (Maybe I actually mumbled my thoughts out loud instead of in my head! ha ha ha ha).  He was just curious about my highest and how I felt when I was higher and how I felt when I was thinner.  Then he laid it out there.   He personally had decided that it is time for him to clean up his eating.  He told me that he knows how much healthier he feels when he is eating correctly.  He said "I'm not expecting you to eat the same way"  but I just feel that this is something I personally need to do.   
Wow....what perfect timing!   I'm not saying that I couldn't do it without him but if he is eating healthier I know that I will tend to eat healthier.   And if he doesn't make the changes in his life?  No biggie.  I've got this!