My Birthday is this Friday and here I sit in worse health than I was last year. Last year I was feeling amazing I was much healthier I was just about to cut all sugar and caffeine out of my life for about 7 months. Right now I am back to my highest weight I was in January 2017 and I am not eating healthy. I've started my health journey a couple times to just have it interrupted by health issues and lack of discipline that I used to have. Sugar and pop have become a daily think, dare I say multiple times a day. My joy that I was living and loving daily has been lacking. The last 7 months everything has done a 180 in comparison to where I had gotten myself and my health last year.
As I was stuffing my face with some M&M's thinking about my upcoming birthday and thought about how close to 40 I am getting and I remembered why I not just want to but NEED to lose weight and get healthy. I had left the whole idea and realization that with my families medical history it is not about of if but a matter of when I could get type 2 diabetes. Everything else in my life has felt so urgent since Aug of last year. There was a very BIG change and with that came a lot of frustration, anxiety and depression. That all pushed me back into my old habits pretty quick. It is strange how they say eating orders come from the person wanting control in their life. I can agree but instead of starving myself or purging after a binge, I just eat and eat and then eat some more. I eat to try to numb the sensations I was going through. And it always works so that is why it is so easy to turn to. Changing your eating habits can make you very cranky no matter what meal plan you are choosing to follow. Because you are no longer able to just eat whatever you want. In May of last year if you would have asked me if I'd every be back where I am now I would have said no way! In June I was happy but not actively pursuing my goals but maintaining my successes so far. In July things were slowly creeping back in but I was still maintaining so I convinced myself it was all ok. But it was those stumbling blocks that I noticed and chose to leave on my path that eventually started my downfall to where I am again today.
This is the eating disorder that no one sees as an eating disorder. I am not 60 or 600 lbs. I am over weight and feeding my feelings to numb myself to them. I believe this is what is the most common eating disorder out there. The ones of us, who love food. We love it in all it's forms. Social events are always surrounded by food. Comfort is always surrounded by food. And when we are eating we feel that slight euphoric peace as the food takes over our pleasure censors in our brains and for that moment all is right in the world. The problem comes when that short lived feeling wears off and real life stress comes back. We either don't want to deal with it or lack to skills to deal with it so we go back to mindlessly eating. At my job this is the one thing I know I can do that helps my day feel better and go a little bit faster. I sit in a cubicle and tend to feed my face off and on for most of the day. And I can honestly say when I am dieting work gets a whole lot worse of a place to be for me. Until I was having success then I started gaining confidence in myself and then it was those positive feelings of confidence and joy that I drew from to get through my day.
I need this SO much more for my health than anything else. As much as I want to lose weight and be thinner I am reaching the point where that is not the point of my journey anymore. While last year I started for health the weight loss was still a driving factor, when the scale didn't go down I got all upset and frustrated. This time it has to be all about my health and increasing not just my quality of life but my quantity of life as well. I NEED this so I can provide a better life not just for me but for my family. I was looking back at past photos and instastory post I saved during the hight of my journey and I sit back and think: I miss me. In the first part of last year I felt more like me than I have in a VERY long time. I was more outgoing, happier, healthier and I know my hubby and kiddos enjoyed that Mommy more so than this one who has no umph to do anything after work.
Now to kick this sickness and get back to business. I have a plan and if I can get this upper respiratory flu out of our system and get back to it, very seriously. We're talking all out cutting out sugar, pop, sweets and for the first round of the 21 day fix no cheating or treats. I struggle with the desire to post every day and not posting much at all. Because I've restarted so many times in the last 7 months I feel like I should just get round one under my belt like last year and go from there. But I will determine that by this weekend.