My Excuse: Emotional Meltdown

Hello bloggerbuddies. I'm sorry for disappearing for a few days. I'm afraid I had my head stuck in my ass. It was really wedged in there good too.

I have three letters for you, see if you can guess what they are.

PMS

Normally PMS is no big deal for me. I get a little irritable one day then I'm all better by the next. This has not been like that....AT ALL. This has been about 4 days of pure hell. Talk about debilitating. Seriously. I couldn't quite figure out how to do or say anything. I was crying (balling my eyes out) for no reason at random moments then I'd dry up as quick as it started and go on with my day. I had moments of horrifyingly violent thoughts. Like BAD. Then I just wanted to crawl under a rock and hide the next moment. I told Accountabilibuddy that I was actually scaring myself because I didn't know that I would be able to contain myself from one moment to the next and I was really afraid that I'd just blow up on some innocent bystander.

It has never ever been this bad for me. I think the worst part is that I could actually see it happening. I knew what I was thinking and feeling and doing and saying was totally crazy and irrational and unnecessary but I just couldn't stop it. I knew it was hormone horror but I couldn't control it. There was a time in my life when I enjoyed being out of control but that is no longer the case. Thank god.

The good news is that I think it has passed. Finally! It really felt as though I was suffocating. Ok, deep breaths, shake it off.


Moving on to something productive....
I mentioned in a post a few days ago that I had a new wonderful plan for improving my food again. Lately, I've been feeling like my diet has been a little lacking. Normally, I love to cook and to try new recipes. I haven't really done much of that in the past month though. Why? I don't know, lazy I guess. Bored maybe. So obviously I needed to do something to shake it up a bit.

What did I do? I bought this at my favorite used book store.

Accountabilibuddy is a good little WW and every so often she'll throw a recipe my way that she finds online. Every one of them I've made has been absolutely delish. So I thought, why not go get myself a good ole fashioned cookbook and just make my way through it. That's right, my plan is to cook every single recipe in the book.

There are 500 recipes in this book which should keep me busy for a long time. If I will actually make it through all of them no one knows. But at least it's a plethora of healthy recipes, some old school comfort food turned healthy, some trying to be gourmet, some super simple, and others a little more challenging. Breakfast, breads, meats, grains, veggies, desserts, etc. It's all in there. And I'm going to make it ALL.

Does anyone have experience with this book? Have you enjoyed it?

LHAS - 2 of 16: The tale of a head case...and another hat

H&G Week 2
That's Hello & Goodbye for those of you that don't know.

Pop quiz: Which movie is that from?

I must confess to you all right here and now. I WAS LAZY! Lazy and moody and tempermental, or maybe just mental.

Here's how my week went:

Wednesday: 80 mins of exercise
Thursday:    45 mins of exercise
Friday:        50 mins of exercise
Saturday:     0 mins of exercise (not totally accurate though because I spent all day walking
                    around Portland, I just didn't count it as exercise)
Sunday:       0 mins of exercise (again, not totally accurate because I spent all day walking
                    around the University District Street Fair but didn't count it as exercise)
Monday:      60 mins of exercise (but it was lame exercise because I pulled my butt and barely
                    moved for about 45 mins of that time)
Tuesday:     0 mins of exercise

Grand Total: *cough cough*....235 mins of exercise.

Weigh in wasn't much better. Duh!

Last week, I weighed in at 160.4. This week, I weighed in at 160.4. Total loss = Nada! 0! Zilch!

So, I had a stressful past couple weeks. So what! Well...I think it was actually for the best.

I've been totally stressed out about life. Everything actually. Do you ever come to a point where you just have to question how you're living and what you're doing and then realize that you desperately need a change? Yup. That's me lately. I go through it every year or couple years actually.

There's really nothing wrong with my life. I live in a beautiful area. I have a couple wonderful friends. My husband is the best one in the whole entire world. I have a great job. I'm healthy. I'm active. I have a ton of hobbies and interests. I have a great house that has sucked up all my blood, sweat, and tears over the past decade.

Really, I have a rich life. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it fits who I am in every area, and it doesn't necesssarily mean that it can't still be improved. That's what I'm talking about. Improving. Finding the things in my life that don't fit anymore, and making them over. Asking myself the tough questions. Or answering the tough questions that some of my favorite bloggerbuddies (Jules values, Chupsie questions) have been asking lately.

You know the questions:

1. What do you value and why?
2. How are your actions supporting your values?
3. What can you do to better align your lifestyle with your values?
4. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera

Pop Quiz #2: Which movie is that from? Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera....

The good news is after asking myself some of these questions and evaluating my life, I realize I'm doing pretty darn good. There are just a couple things that I can improve on or change up to better align with my values. That feels really good actually. I'm not quite ready to release it out to the world yet because my thoughts are still flying around in my head in a very disorganized chaotic manner and I must tame them before letting you in on my madness. And...you're welcome.

So, although the scale didn't move and I didn't do a lot of exercise this week, I'm actually ok with it. It's how we handle ourselves in our moments of weakness that defines us, and I think I've handled myself pretty well (not considering the amount of cheese I ate last night). Also, the calorie deficit over the past 2 weeks has shown that the scale should report another 2lb loss sooner or later. I just have to get rid of this stress so my body can shed the pounds.

On the wagon, off the wagon, on the wagon...

Here's a question for you.

What do you consider acceptable wagon behavior?

I hear people talk about being on the weight loss wagon and then apologize for falling off the wagon and then complain about how it's the struggle to get back on again. So, what about when someone claims to be on the wagon but their behaviors are questionable?

What do you think? Is it acceptable to....

• Eat healthful foods during the work day then throw it all out the window a couple nights a week
• Go to happy hour and "treat yourself" with a couple drinks and a shared appetizer a couple nights a week
• Commit to participating in physical activity then not show up
• Tap into your vast collection of lame excuses to get out of doing something good for you
• Say you want to take care of yourself and that it's the most important thing to you then over eat or skip out on exercise
• Make good choices for yourself during the week but allow total freedom every weekend
• Ask for advice and support then choose to ignore it
• Turn people down when they invite you to do some kind of physical activity

Just wondering what you think about these types of behaviors. To me, they say "I care but not enough to do anything that might be a little uncomfortable for a while". Or perhaps they say "It's important to me but only as long as the actions to get there are convenient". Yes I want to exercise might actually be code for "Yes I want to want to exercise" or in other words, "I really wish I wanted to exercise".

Too bad exercising actually requires the ass to leave the sofa.

I'm struggling with some of these behaviors myself. No, I'm not doing any of them. I have agreed to support someone starting their weight loss journey and I see these behaviors in that person's actions. So my struggle is in determining where to allow them a little flexibility to find and celebrate the small successes to build the much needed self esteem and where to sit them down and and wag my wholier than thou finger right in their face.

I've had another person I agreed to support in the past and she did these behaviors. I was gentle with her the first couple times then I just laid it out brutal and honest. My message was basically to shit or get off the pot. I hate that stupid saying but it works in this type of situation I think. What else is there? I mean really. If you have all the resources necessary, you have the knowledge for eating right and getting some physical acitivity, you have the motivation (such as being morbidly obese and having health related problems because of it), all that is really left is to get off your ass and walk the walk.

I understand that there is an emotional component to it. In my experience, the emotional component was what made the difference. I am not the best at maintaining a level playing field as far as my stress goes. I tend to overdo everything then clean up the stress mess when it's all done. The stress management is huge for my body to allow proper fuctioning. Self esteem is what fuels the fire deep inside me. Without believing in myself, it would be so easy to quit when times get tough. Understanding my emotions and how to affect them gives me the control to use them to my advantage in times of strength and in times of weakness.

Now if only I could bottle my knowledge and experience and education and self awareness...I really wish I could just plug my brain into theirs and download everything so they can feel the same kind of joy I feel from doing the right things for myself. If only...