Long past time, actually…
I have ignored myself for too long. No, I can’t say “ignored,” I should say “indulged.” Even though I was so frantic to get to a healthy weight before I turned 40 last year, and gave it a decent effort back in January and February, but after that, I pretty much just threw up my hands. I trained for my second 55-mile bike ride (which was great!) in May, and I think I let myself use that as an excuse to not really keep track of what I was eating. After all, I was training hard! And after that, I pretty much… stopped caring. I mean, I’d still think about my goal, but it didn’t matter so much. I was (and still am) belly dancing, and people still enjoy watching me perform. And I still remembered that people would tell me I was an inspiration to them because I can dance in public and have fun (and LOOK LIKE I'm having fun!) in spite of my size.
There were other excuses I told myself as to why I "couldn't" start until next week. Or the week after. Or the week after that. And then it was October, and almost my Birthday, and there was no way I could magically become the size I wanted, so why try? Still with the self-loathing, though. And then The Day came, and I turned 40 and...
...the world kept turning.
I survived turning 40 while being Very Heavy. I had a couple of parties, and people were there to celebrate ME. Nothing was said to me about having put on more weight (although I'm sure they thought it...) because that's not why they were there. They were there to celebrate Who I Am, not How Big I Am, or How Much I Weigh. They were there because they love me As I Am, flaws and everything. Perhaps turning 40 at this weight was good for me...?
So here I am at an even higher weight than I was this time last year, when I was at the "highest weight I'd ever been." Yah. I'm still not happy with myself because of it, but I'm nowhere near as disgusted with myself as I was last year.
I could keep going on like I did last year with the same kinds of excuses, and I'd probably just keep getting bigger. And while that would be the easy thing to do, I really don't want to keep repeating that vicious cycle. So I've dusted off and updated my food tracking account and I found some new ones (Runtastic, which interfaces with MyFitnessPal, and RunDouble, a free app which will talk me through the Couch to 5K) to play with on my new Android phone (happy birthday to me!) and I started (yet) again yesterday.
I know some days will be easier than others, and I know Motivation is always strongest at the beginning of the journey/trek/dance/slog/diet/lifestyle change. This time through, I'm really going to try to take each day one at a time, so hopefully I won't be as tempted to let a whole week slide just because of one meal/day lost to temptation. Because I know those meals/days will happen - I am only human, after all. I will just have to set that day in the past and leave it there, and then get myself back to the hard work.
So here goes.
