A Difficult Week

On the plus side, I didn't turn to alcohol when everything crashed down on me this week. And by everything I mean the weight of the words that run through my head when I am believing the voices that don't come from God.

How do I know these words didn't come from God? To begin with, I wasn't in the hot tub. If you're new to my blog you can read about my God in The Hot Tub conversations here, here, and here. Also, they were soul sucking words, words of discouragement and defeat, words of failure and fault. God doesn't speak that way. 

I know that.

But sometimes I don't believe that.

In the midst of the lies I believe that I am broken in such a way that I will never "get it", whatever the "it" is that makes grilled chicken and brown rice equal weight loss. I have been on a diet of basically that - lean protein and either brown rice or a sweet potato, or a protein shake and oatmeal - for six weeks. In the first week I lost 4 pounds. Since then I have bounced up and down the same two pounds over and over again. Admittedly, I have added some things on occasion, but those things account for less than 10% of my overall intake, and most of them have been what are generally considered healthy choices - mostly fruit, some bread, but yes, three or four non-alcoholic beers as well. And there was that serving of homemade rhubarb crumble with vanilla ice cream that I do not regret in the least.

My trainer has a chart on the wall of his studio that shows how many pounds his clients have lost since he opened in March of 2013. I looked at it yesterday and it was almost up to 1000 lbs. One thousand pounds, and not a single one of them is mine. I weigh now what I weighed when I first walked into his studio fifteen months ago. I lost some, then I gained some, then I settled right back where I started.

What is wrong with me? This is the main lie that has been running through my head this week, that there is something wrong with me because I haven't found the tools that will help me get healthy.

I'm also in pain again. The workouts with my trainer have taken their toll and my hip/leg/feet are just about back where they were when I quit the workouts before.

If you were telling me all this, I would say without a doubt that this trainer is not the trainer for you. 

And so I am quitting the workouts with him again. I'm off the Extreme Fat Loss food plan too. Maybe my body doesn't like protein shakes. Maybe it is resisting the lack of vegetables in the summer while they are so abundant. It's for sure my body does not like the workouts that I love so much. 

Nice to see you again Square One.

Halfway Point

A week and a day late with this post, but I passed the halfway point on June 6.

Not drinking is easier than I thought it would be. The anticipation of not drinking at events usually turns out to be worse than the experience of it. It's not such a big deal not to drink; I don't feel weird, and I haven't had but a few moments of feeling left out. 

There is still, however, a longing. A regret, almost, that I made this deal with myself. I am aware of how easily I could change my mind and have a drink. There is  nothing but myself keeping me from doing that. There is nothing but this "what would it be like to?" hanging over my head. I wonder, at times, what this is really all about.

Part of it, I think, is testing to see if I can trust myself to keep a promise to myself. I've been slippery in the past, making and then breaking dozens of promises to be healthier, eat better, drink less, sleep more. 

Six months is more than enough time to realize that I am not going to break this promise this time. Why oh why did I have to go with a whole year? Certainly six months of no drinking is a long enough time. The Half Year of No Alcohol (HYONA?) doesn't have quite the ring to it, but it would have served its purpose.

That's assuming I know what the purpose of this year is. 

Which I don't.

While it is true that I have a closer relationship to God now than I did six months ago, I can't see a solid connection between that and not drinking. It's not like I've prayed to God to help me not drink. It's also not like I've been severely tempted to drink and have turned to God instead.

Maybe it is as simple as this experiment of not drinking has merely been  a means of allowing a relationship to develop between me and God. All throughout the day I find myself turning to him more and more, and I don't know that if I hadn't taken alcohol out of the equation I would have even thought to do that. It is possible that if I had given up anything else - magazines, Spider Solitaire, that blasted 2048 game - and told myself that I would turn to God instead I would have ended up right where I am now. Maybe it was just the choice to make God a part of my life, and the thing that I gave up was meaningless.

I guess I'll never know.

But here I am, halfway through a Year of No Alcohol, wondering what the next six months will bring.

The Habit of Sadness

At work the other day there were donuts in the morning and cake in the afternoon. Old me on a diet would have used the excuse that these were for a celebration - two retirements - and therefore I was allowed to have some. More recent me may have resisted both the donuts and the cake, but it would have been a struggle and I would have been angry. Today's me didn't think twice about having either the donuts or the cake, but today's me was sad.

I couldn't finish the sentence "I feel sad because ..." but I recognized the feeling of sadness. Every thought that I tried to associate with the feeling didn't ring true. I didn't think I was being left out. I didn't think the donuts or cake would have tasted amazing. I didn't think that I would never again have the opportunity to have baked goods.

Undoubtedly I felt sad when I thought about the donuts and cake, but as I worked it over in my mind I slowly came to realize that feeling sad was merely a habit that I had developed.

Event X = Feeling Y

So now what? Good to know, certainly. Should I purposely conjure up the opposite feeling? I could make up new thoughts about how I am honoring myself and choosing good foods for my body, but that feels, at this moment, like so much blah blah blah.

I'm in a funk.

Even though I started this post days ago the funk has stayed with me. I've had a few moments out of it, but I am on a downhill slide. Or maybe I'm looking wistfully back at the mountain of weight behind me and wishing it were still about climbing that darn thing."Time to head north" sounded great, what was it? More than two weeks ago? I'm wandering aimlessly now, no longer hearing the voice of God. Is it time to hit the hot tub again?

More questions than answers. 

Here's how I picture myself. Head down, I'm watching one foot go in front of the other. I stop periodically to open a can of tuna fish and eat it without feeling - no joy or gratitude or awareness of making a "good" choice. I've had more than a couple difficult days where I feel hungry most of the time, and I am currently both hungry and nauseous. In the back of my mind I'm wondering if I'm nauseous because I'm hungry. This doesn't feel right.

This still feels like ignoring my body's hunger signals. It's not right when I ignore them and eat when I'm not hungry, and it isn't right when I ignore them and don't eat when I am hungry.

I've been here and I've done this before. I need to make different decisions but I don't trust myself to know what the right decisions are. 

Or is that just another habit? Not a habit of sadness but a habit of not trusting myself?

I exhaust myself.

In two days it will be the six month mark of my Year of No Alcohol. I miss it. It feels I am depriving myself for no good reason. The results I am seeing are not ones that I would have chosen. Nothing is clearer; I haven't made any huge leaps in my health or my weight. 

Hard, hard, hard. And yet ...

Onward. Ever onward.