Yes, I titled this with “down, down”. Yes I am hearing “Rock Lobster” in my head, right at the part where Fred Schneider is singing “down, down” and picturing people at one of my high school dances sinking to the floor.
How? Why? What? Yes, well, perhaps it has something to do a certain Nutella and pretzel scoops incident this week. Yes, I cheated on Lent. I made a promise to God and broke it. Does it really get much worse?
Actually, yes, it does. It does get worse. It happened more than once. But, it also gets worse than cheating on God. In fact, I did not cheat on God. I did not cheat on Lent. I simply cheated myself. I broke a promise. I am not hurting God. I hurt me.
While I explore all of the underlying meanings of this violation, I can laugh at myself.
Suddenly, it all makes sense to me.
My first thought was to pretend I never even started this stupid blog and just quit updating it.
“No,” I thought, “you have done that a bunch of times. You always come back to this, so some part of you wants to do this.”
Having established that I would, in fact, update this thing, I had to figure out how to finesse this whole “cheating” thing. My knee-jerk solution: just leave it out. Yes, a nice lie by omission. Nothing screams, “spiritual growth” like dishonesty.
So, here I am, telling on myself. I am getting back on the bike and pedaling. It is not exactly the first time in my life that I have started something, and gone off course, and simply swerved back on.
Something about not doing it perfectly makes it all sort of dirty in my mind- like a dress with a spot right in the middle of it. My first reaction is that my Lent is ruined.
Actually, it is not ruined at all. It is better because I get to look at why I went there- to Nutellaville. This is a time of renewal and growth. If everything moves along placidly until Easter Sunday, then I pound down an industrial sized jar of Nutella, what have I gained?
If I find out why I tend to listen to the voice that says, “c’mon, it’s just one time. It’s Nutella, it’s like a nut-butter really”, then what have I really lost?
I will take the counsel of that self-defeating voice, even when my higher inspiration is screaming to my psyche, “hey, what are you doing? You are just going to feel bad about this right after it happens- probably even while it is happening.”
Meanwhile, I am sticking to and thriving with the “spending time with God” part of my Lenten journey. I kind of think this Nutella incident is just part of my spiritual growth.
It made its point. Now, I am here, telling the truth. I am not little Miss Lent 2014, Chaste Princess of Virtue. I am just a chick, trying to connect to God, and to grow. That is all still happening.
Until next time.
diet
Lent day one
Well, I did not do the whole Ash Wednesday, cross-on-your-forehead thing. That is just because I am not Catholic, and I didn’t think it was probably right to randomly make a cross on my head with just any old ashes. I had an imaginary cross.
I also had a major hangover. I don’t drink- gave that up 11 years ago. I am talking about from the sugar, fat and gluten bender I went on Fat Tuesday. Actually, scratch that. I have sort of been on a bender since Thanksgiving. I don’t know how it happened. It just did.
Anyway, as much as I want to pretend that these people who go on and on about how sugar is bad for everything from your psyche to your joints, are just some crazed health freaks, out to spoil everyone’s fun- they are kind of right. Seriously.
I could not even make my Day One journal entry last night because I went into delirium tremens and slipped into a sweaty night coma. Okay, well, that did not happen. I did, however, crash completely out the moment my head hit the pillow.
I was tired all day yesterday. I was off my square for sure. I was tempted to hit the vending machine at work and mainline some Skittles, but then I thought about Jesus. I did say I was going to eat clean to get closer to God.
Making that kind of promise is on a par with promising something to your Gramma- you don’t break those kind of promises. You just don’t. I know some people might be offended that I am comparing my Gramma to God. I am certain God gets it- he knows about grandmothers.
In all seriousness, it did make me feel closer to God. I am pretty sure God is busy with far more important things than keeping me from ponying up 85-cents for vending machine Skittles. I am clear that this eating clean thing is not going to change the world. I do think that, by doing this, denying myself and getting closer to God, I will maybe come closer to my own purpose, so I can play the role God wants me to in this world. We all have a purpose. Every one of us.
Inspirational lies
The really awesome thing about having your own words in print- especially on the internet, where they will be around forever- is that you can always go back and review your past musings and get a good laugh. I could cry, but I choose to laugh.
The month was August. The title: “C’s Get Degrees”. I wrote the following:
“So, when I finished weight training and a run this morning, and thought, ‘I am just going to give this everything and see what this does for me when I do that full marathon in February’, I got this twingey, awesome feeling. I am not going to let fear stand in my way. I am just going to do this- and give it my best effort.”
Hmmm. I wonder when I was planning to give it my best effort? Seems life got away from me. I thought I had not written in a couple of weeks. turns out it is going on a couple of months. Wow. So, how are things? Are you on some inspired high, accomplishing great things? I sure hope someone is.
So, I think I gained weight back. I have been “busy”. I love that word. It is so short, tidy and “busy”. It even sounds like, “I just don’t have time for anything longer than a four letter word– so much happening.” I guess I have been working. I have had some stuff going on at home.
Nope, I think the four letter word I am grasping for is lazy.
I am being hard on myself. I have not been lazy at the grocery store, while visiting TJ Maxx specifically to buy chocolate (they have great stuff, by the way), or when going out for ridiculous lunches. Oh, sure I start the day logging in my Livestrong food journal. I go to the gym and bang out runs. I most certainly have not given my best effort to this whole marathon training/being healthy thing. I haven’t been getting on the scale either. My psyche views it as some sort of Kryptonite.
I decided to come back here for some inspiration. What went wrong the past two months? Why do I keep going on food “benders”. There has to be a reason. I keep hearing all of the great voices of trainers past saying things like, “you either want this or your don’t. You aren’t going to mess up my life if you don’t stick with this.” I read my own snarky, enlightened words and it is as if someone else wrote them. Maybe I have an evil twin- wait, maybe I am the evil twin.
Why would I write such truthful and un-motivational crap in my positive-life-changes blog? Because it is the truth. I am not going to spew unicorns and rainbows out of my arse just because it is what I should be doing. I will never understand why I have such a struggle with food. In order for me to lie in this little blog- to you- I have to lie to me first. Why do that?
So, what happens next? Well, I am taking a first step now. I have some thinking to do. I am making some changes. They involve sugar and gluten. I am really not trying to jump on a nutty bandwagon with the gluten thing. I have been diagnosed with chronic fatigue. I have arthritis. I have some stomach issues that I don’t need to go into here. Use your imagination- just don’t be really gross, because it isn’t “really” gross. I have learned that gluten can do all of the above to your system.
The good news is, if I ditch the gluten, and I am not diagnosed with a disorder, the change will not hurt me. I guess Gluten is not something we humans really need in our bodies. I do feel crappy a lot. I guess I will try this. This whole thing could get really fun. Maybe I will diagnose myself with something else in a couple of months. Who knows. I am just going at this thing a day at a time- even a month at a time.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers- but I sure do have a lot of questions. I am not giving up hope. I just hope the “twingey” feeling I had in the previously above mentioned exert from a past blog will come back. It took me a good 7 attempts to quit smoking. I guess this food crap started way before I started smoking. Maybe it will just be harder to make these changes.
Anyway, I am going to attempt to get back on track- guess I need to make sure I can find the track.
So, till we meet again, my friends.
Emptying bowls, and bags of chips, and… oh you get the idea!
(The bowls, pictured above, are from a fundraiser for the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan. They were all made and donated by local artists. You buy a bowl, you eat all of the soup you want for $15. The soup was provided by local restaurants. No, they do not have much to do with today’s post, but aren’t they pretty?)
I found myself wanting to write, but thinking that I am not “inspired enough” right now. Read: I don’t have a bunch of unicorns and fairies floating through my brain. I don’t have the 10 magic steps to happiness and fulfilment to offer. I do have reality. That was supposed to be the point of this whole blogging venture. Right? Junk I think is not always inspired at awesome. Sometimes it is the uninspired and un-awesome that I need to pay the most attention to. My personal bout of “crazy” has something to teach me.
So, this is where I am. I am still in love with running in the rain- or running anywhere. But I am in a bit of quicksand this week. I am a little restless. By restless I mean, up at midnight eating Funions, Salt and Vinegar Lays and Fruity Snacks. I do not really even like any of them. They were there. I was feeling anxious. You get the idea.
That little moment of avoiding the real issue was a great follow-up to the 36 bowls of soup I had at a fundraiser for the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan, called “Empty Bowls”. Oh, I emptied some bowls alright. So, maybe I did not eat 36, but I ate four. Yes, FOUR! Where was all of my, “damn I’m good and healthy” bravado that I was waving around earlier in the week?
While the lbs scale and the fat scale slowly continue to trek downward, it is not fast enough for me. I took my measurements and had lost only about two inches- across my entire body- over two weeks. Never mind how differently my clothes are fitting. It is all about cold, hard numbers right?
Here is the thing, it is- and it isn’t. I have been working pretty hard and keeping up with a training plan, except for this week. I got in two great runs, but I skipped my weight training because I spent the time I could have been weight training weighing out whether I actually had time to squeeze in some weight training. Any time I start doing that is a good time for me to stop and ask, “hey, chick, what is wrong? Do you want to do this or don’t you?” No one is holding a gun or anything else to my head. I made a choice to get healthy. I am either in or I am not. Period.
Skipping the things that I know make me feel great- like the workouts – and then doing things that I know will make me feel bad, like pounding down Funions et. all- are signs that I need to be honest with myself. About what is really floating through my kooky little brain. Something has to be off, especially since I specifically schedule time and set my alarm so that I will be able to fit in workouts. I specifically do not buy snacks I love so that I will not go on midnight benders.
I am trying to get healthy, not win a body building contest. Still, there is a voice in my head telling me that things are not happening fast enough. A friend posted yesterday that she had lost 23 pounds. I am sincerely happy for her, but wondering why is it going so slowly for me. The answer is simple: because it is. Comparing myself and my progress to anyone else’s is a recipe for failure.
Maybe my friend did not go and empty a bunch of bowls at the Empty Bowls event. Maybe she did not power-eat snack food she did not like last night. Maybe she has been at it longer than me. Maybe, when she is not feeling inspired, or feels like sabotaging her own efforts she stops and listens and tries to understand why Funions seem like such a great idea right now.
Love Your Life 