What I Learned Last Week

I was feeling pretty powerful last week.  I had made goals for my nutrition and my exercise, I put on my game face and just started chasing the goal with dogged determination.  I stayed for exercise classes three nights, kept my calories at or under 1545 for the most part and pushed myself at work to get all kinds of arts and crafts projects finished along with the rest of our regular curriculum.  I was leaving home at 7:10 every morning and getting back home around 6:00 at night.  Was I tired and sore?  Sure thing.  But I thought when the weekend came I’d just relax a little, recover, it would all be cool and I’d be ready to rock it out again this week in pursuit of that goal to weigh 190 by 12/31.

  {Bradley is making concrete countertops and is installing them as our gift to ourselves for Christmas.}But really?  It was like my brain and body were able to keep it together as long as my obligation to work existed for the week.  Then I was done.  It was like a switch flipped.  On Friday night our kids were singing at our local tree lighting.  It’s an annual tradition for us.  I’m proud to say that we have been to every tree lighting in our hometown ever since the planted the tree that they light.  The Santa who sits on the throne is the very same one that Jude saw at Fred Meyer so many years ago, out of uniform and in July, but he still looked like Santa and even had a picture of himself dressed in his Santa suit…  It’s the real Santa- not one of his helpers!  But it didn’t matter that I love this Santa or that event.  As we were driving to the city center I could feel my mood melting like ice cream.  By the time we got to the tree lighting it was already crowded and bustling.  The building’s flow was tight and claustrophobic.  I couldn’t get out of the crowds, I couldn’t see my kids singing, there was nowhere to be and high schoolers were running the thing so it felt insane and disorganized, but mostly I was just losing my mind that night.  I couldn’t stand being there and had to actively talk to myself all night about keeping it together and not snapping.  I had to keep reminding myself that I was lucky to be there with my kids, watching Jude ham it up in front of the crowd as he sang, listening to my kids tell Santa that they were good, watching all of the tiny little kids, filled with wonder.  I had to keep reminding myself that the day was a gift, the ability to attend the event was a privilege.  It was a hard night and the weekend just continued thusly.

Saturday was a foul mixture of laying in bed, getting up, trying out my day and the smallest thing road blocking me and back to bed I’d go.  My socks would get wet, I needed to replace batteries, it wouldn’t stop raining, our home is under construction…  Once again I was fully aware that my mental state was a construct, but I couldn’t get out from under my irritation, anger, rage, sadness, shame, disappointment, depression.  It was a stupid waste of a day.  It was a day where, at the end of it, I realized on my deathbed I’d be pissed about.  I tried to be intentional, but my crazy week wore me out and I just couldn’t seem to slay my dragon.  I also had some pretty serious weightloss PMS* so that didn’t help, either.  I’m not going to belabor this long, depressing story anymore except to say that it continued through Sunday night and into the wee hours of the morning until I realized I wouldn’t be able to do my job well with such little sleep, so I called in for a sick day and wrote some sub plans.  

I’m feeling better now.  Better, but cautious.  One of my friends posted last night about going to Zumba today, but I thought about that long day without my family and my heart skipped a beat.  I think I’m too delicate right now to do that again.  I think I pushed myself into a weekend of anxiety and depression by adding a bunch of workouts, 11+ hour days and a significant calorie crunch.  I think I tell myself sometimes that I can do everything without making accommodations elsewhere but that’s not always true.  How many times have we heard that we just have to do it?  That we have to simply make time for ourselves.  To be selfish and unapologetically take that hour to workout.  To prioritize ourselves and our food intake- aren’t we important, too?  Women’s magazines are always pointing out that busy, working moms have a full plate so we just need to force our own needs into the cracks and crevices in the name of ‘me time,’ but that just didn’t work for me last week, and this week I’m scared, fragile.

  

So that’s where I am.  I’ve been quiet because who ever feels like airing this stuff out.  How was my weekend?  Crazy.  I was literally crazy.  It’s not what I picked but I certainly did facilitate it.  It’s not like there weren’t bright spots or I wasn’t successful, though.  Yesterday I weighed in at 194 on the Wii Fit again.  I’m making progress from my 199/200 weigh-in from one week ago to 194 this week, a nice 5-6 pound loss.  I weigh less than Bradley presently, which is pretty fun, but it came at a steep cost to me.  

I still don’t have a plan for this week, which makes me a little nervous, but I’m just letting it flow this week.  Last week I learned that I can’t always power through with determination. I have a lot to get done at work this week in preparation for jury duty next week and I don’t think an added layer or workout and diet stress is what I need on top.  So, for today, at least, I’m going to allow a 5th day without a focused workout.  Tomorrow might be the same, but I’m not going to allow myself to worry about it for now.  I just need to make sure my head game is solid, again, before I throw myself back into the the fray.  My bullheaded determination isn’t the answer to everything.

*fat stores hormones and I’ve found that when I lose some weight, PMS is significantly worse as the stored hormones get processed.  Awful.