Old Habits Die Hard

May 23, 2011

About a month ago I found out something very devastating. I am not going to go in to the details of that because it is very private and is not really the point of this post. But - I was devasted. Completely. I have never been through something like this and I still struggle with it daily.

For the first week after everything happened I was sick. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I felt a little like a walking zombie. It consumed me. Infact, that first week is a bit of a blur now. I ended up losing like 3 lbs that week. The following week, however, I turned to food. Just like before surgery, I found comfort in eating crap and would think "who cares"... just like the old me would say. So for the past three weeks I haven't been "on program". No, I wasn't perfect before all this. I would indulge, but I knew how to balance it. Have some pizza over the weekend, watch my diet throughout the week, but with this "who cares" attitude I am grazing constantly. I am not neccessarily eating crap(although there is some candy eating involved),  but I am eating when I am not hungry for sure. Grab a yogurt, a string cheese, sun ships, chips and salsa, eat, eat, eat.

I hadn't even weighed myself for the last three weeks until this morning... how lucky am I that I only put on about 2-3 lbs. It could have been much worse. I need to get back on track, but I am just still so down that I'm having a hard time motivating myself.

Another thing I am struggling with is exercise. A few weeks before all this happened I got a pretty bad case of bronchitis. I could not exercise because I felt like I was going to pass out from lack of oxygen. One lap around the parking lot at my work (.34miles) and I would feel short of breath... then all this happened and I am not motivated. At all. Last weekend I did the San Francisco Bay to Breakers. It was a 12k which is 7.5 miles. I jogged a very small portion of it, around two miles, and walked the rest. With all the extra walking that day I probably did around 13 miles. All of that with absolutely no exercise for atleast the month and a half before. I am proud of myself for getting through it and recovering pretty quickly. It lit a fire in me to get back to exercise even if my diet is not quite under control right now, but the fire was quickly extinguished with a vist from mother nature (a la that time of the month).

I'm just feeling like a loser that I can't get myself together. I am scared of putting back on some serious weight... I think that would devastate me even further. Over three years out and it's not easy. It's work. And it's scary. It's scary that I fell back in to old habits so easily. I have obviously not found other coping machanisms. I thought I had. I thought exercise was my release, however in the wake of real devastation I turned back to old habits.

I'm still under construction... I need to get back to s support group, phone a friend, something... but I need to knock out the BS.

"And the rituals that soothe and disgust me will be gone in some time... I'll be fine."

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