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I don’t know man… the goat picture just continues to make me laugh, and since I’m about to talk about serious things, I wanted to start out with something lighter. If you’re not in the mood for an introspective, deepish post, just look at the floating goat for now.
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So… I went haywire this weekend. It started out with a Friday after-work beer with coworkers, which somehow turned into two beers and crab dip in a bread bowl. Saturday morning I woke up with a don’t care attitude and ate too much of the wrong things from the start… then finished the day with two sangrias and a ton of fried, heavy food at dinner. I woke up at 2am sweaty and nauseous, determined to stop. I started out well on Sunday, then quickly transitioned to fried pickles, too many dinner rolls with too much butter, and several ice cream bars.
It just didn’t go well, and it brought along with it the headaches, stomach issues, and fatigue that always ride along with terrible food choices.
And the thing is… it was a willful decision. I don’t know why really. I thought a lot about it, and I do think some work stress is playing into it, but I think there’s more than that.
Honestly… I think I’m afraid. I’m afraid of success when it comes to my own health and fitness. I’m seeing real results. Strangers are commenting on obvious changes. I feel stronger. I look stronger. Evi noticed that I have the barest beginnings of definition in my abs. She thinks it’s funny that my arms are “hard” when I flex.
And so I’ve started to set some goals. I want to run the 5K at FitBloggin. I want to lose more weight. I want to drop a size by Christmas. I want to get through the September Warrior Dash without missing a single obstacle due to weakness or fear.
Suddenly it all terrifies me. What if I can’t meet those goals? What if I don’t meet them? What if I tell everyone about them and then I fail? What if this little bit of success is fleeting? What if I can’t maintain it, can’t keep it going? (Let us not use rational thinking to point out to my craziness that I’ve never held on this long, never felt so much like I’ve made a real life change.)
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Yep, welcome to the rabbit hole. It goes deep, and I’m not sure how much I can explore it.
I don’t know why I seem so inclined to fight my own success, or worse yet why this time I’ve let myself get so much farther before the self-destruct mechanism kicked in. In some ways it’s worse this way, because I’ve come so far and seen so much success.
I’m not mad about the food choices I made this weekend. I made the wrong choices and for the wrong reasons, but learning to handle this sort of thing is all part of the process that will get me to long-term success.
There it is again though. Just typing the words “long-term success” triggered a sniggering in my brain, a gut reaction, a tiny little voice reminding me I’d never make it. “But I AM making it,” my rational mind screams, and yet…
I swear I’m not as doldrums and doom as this post might read. In reality, I’m in a fairly good place in so many aspects of my life. I am still making good food choices most of the time, and I’m still spending mornings at the gym. I haven’t let it beat me yet. I just wish I understood what was behind it all in the first place, and (more importantly) how to get past it so that I wouldn’t constantly be fighting the urge to beat myself down. I like me. I find myself to be rather likable, funny, dependable. I’m a good listener, I have a nice smile. I like to make people happy. My daughter is awesome, which I’m content to take some small measure of credit for. I work hard, I like to learn, I am loved.
So why?
