Facing the Music (the healthy you challenge check in)

Here's a little peek into my psyche. You know I've had a bad week if my check in post is absurdly late, almost to the point of being nonexistent(believe me, I did have more than a few thoughts of just not posting at all). I got on the scale this morning and it wasn't good. At all. I'm not going to post the ugly details because, quite frankly, I find that counter productive. A bad morning on the scale can undermine me for weeks to come. It can toss me into a pit of self pity and self loathing so deep that all I want to do is binge. So we won't go there.

I spent the day trying to organize my thoughts about this post, or more to the point, my thoughts on what factors could have contributed to the temporary demise of my losing streak. I still feel very positive about my decision to give up meat, but I do think it needs some tweaking. A dear friend of mine, and one time vegetarian herself, cautioned me about overdoing the dairy. Evidently it's a rookie mistake, and one, on further inspection, I have totally run with. I also realized that while I have definitely increased my fruit and veggie intake, I have also exponentially increased my carb intake in the form of pasta and rice. Ooops. Note to self. Pay closer attention to carbs and dairy. Thanks Cindy!

And if we're being completely honest here, I have to talk about the big ass pink elephant in the room. It's an ugly one. It's the E word. Just saying "exercise" makes me want to curl up on the couch and veg. I really have to find a way to change my crappy attitude.

Where did this aversion to exercise come from? Funny you should ask. I like to call it "Walk Nazi Backlash". I affectionately call my mother The Walk Nazi. She loves to walk, and thinks everyone should love to walk. When I was a teenager, and we were in the throes of our own brand of mother/daughter angst, her panacea for all my ills was to walk. During my Jr. year in high school we lived at the end of a 1.2 mile dirt road. I had to walk that road every day after school. Up and back, as "exercise". It was an expected chore, that and cleaning the kitchen after dinner. My father liked to get in on the fun by prescribing loooong Saturdays of indentured servitude doing yard work all under the guise of "exercise". Yeah right.

Of course they had my best interest at heart, and seriously, how bad can a walk up a dirt road in the middle of a beautiful farm be? And the yard work? Well, that sucked, but who didn't have to do chores to earn an allowance? Unfortunately I processed the whole thing as being all about poor picked on me. I was being singled out, suppressed, and put upon all due to my blooming weight problem. I haven't really gotten past the "exercise-is-a-big-bad-ugly-chore-set-upon-this-earth-to-vex and torture me" thing. Mature huh? Maybe its time to move on. But how to do that, well there's the rub. All I can do at this point is take it in little tiny baby steps. I've promised myself to go to the gym three times this week (we won't discuss the fact that I haven't gone yet). That's it. That's as far ahead as I'm thinking.

So, there you have it, my less than stellar week. I just have to keep in mind that in the grand scheme of things, it means very little, and I need to keep my perspective. If I can take something positive from it and apply it to my pursuit of a healthy life style, then all is not lost.