Getting Real

I hugely disappointed myself last night. First of all, I weighed myself. My scale had been hidden away (not on purpose) for ages now, and I finally got around to cleaning under our tub yesterday and it was pulled out. Like a body possessed I found myself standing on it and looking aghast at the number that appeared. I knew I had gained a lot of weight, but I was really surprised. I was at least ten pounds more than I thought I was. It made me super depressed, which led me down a somewhat destructive eating path, really just piling on top of a weekend that already had a theme of overindulgence. I was mad at myself for letting my weight get away from myself so badly again (I haven't weighed this much in three years), but I was also upset because I even weighed myself. I like how I look, and now I'm letting some stupid number ruin that for me. Of course, this does reinforce the fact that health wise I need to really stick to the changes I decided to make at the beginning of the month and truly work harder at eating mindfully.

But it also reinforces that this issue I have with food is truly an addiction, truly something in my head, something that goes beyond not have "willpower." I'm not trying to detract from my own faults in this weight gain, I mean, I did purchase, cook, and eat the food that has caused my weight gain, but I can't tell you how many times I've eaten an outrageous amount of food, rationalizing it the whole time, then, when it's gone, looking back, almost as if I had woken from a dream, unable to believe I had actually done that.

I've spent the last 24 hours feeling so full of self-loathing, and then feeling angry that I'm so full of it. It's like these two parts of me are battling each other, and I don't know who to let win, or if I even have a choice in that. While I'm often thankful I'm not significantly affected by my eating disorder (I mean, I would say I have a "mild" case), and I've not been hospitalized, I haven't had a significant binge in a long time (I'm just chronically overeating, sometimes to the point where I feel chronically ill) and I haven't started eating straight bags of sugar or something (as can happening with binge eating disorders), this all still super, duper sucks. I'm in this weird place where I just don't want to think about food any more, but I can't think about anything else.

I sometimes wonder how much more I could get done and how much better I'd feel if I just stopped eating.

But I know I can't do that, like physically can't. I like eating too much. It elicits too much pleasure for me to not do it.

Ugh. I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.

Running Away

I went for my first run today since...oh, probably spring time. For a while I was a reasonably solid runner, able to run continuously for 4 to 5 miles, but now I'm back on the Couch to 5K plan. There's actually a really cool app (I think it's the official app for the C25K plan) that I used today that I think I'll continue to use in the future. I like it so much more than just using my watch because I only have to listen for the cue from the app to switch from running to walking rather than messing with my watch's timer.

My hope, naturally, is that I'll continue to run. I have plans to run every day for the rest of this week, and I know I can fit in a run next Monday and possibly Tuesday as well. I do worry, though, as school starts back up and then when I'm taking courses again if I'll be able to make time. I have an extremely hard time justifying making the time to run when I have work, school work, or housework to do, and I really can't afford to let anything in these departments slip because they all sort of teeter on the edge of being done (especially housework, and I really can't even consider that something that ever really gets "done").

I did also buy a kettle bell with some Christmas money in hopes that I will do some workouts with that on days I can't run. I also want to do some small yoga/stretching workouts to gain back some flexibility as my joints have been very stiff lately. These are a bit easier to manage in terms of time because I can do them with the kiddos around or before or after work. But running is my favorite way to workout. It's easy, in the sense that you just go and can think about other things and be outside. I never imagined myself as a runner, but every time I do it I become a runner, no matter how slow I am or infrequent my runs are. I'd love to run more, to make it my "thing."

Before the week is out I probably sit down and take a good look at my schedule for next week (back to work!) and see if I can figure out which days I can run. I'm not sure how the consistency will be, but if I look at things from a week to week basis then I'll have better odds and not get so overwhelmed with "doing it right" (that's a big problem of mine).

As I go down this road (ha!), my goals are shifting farther and farther away from a desire to run to lose weight, but to do something I've never done before and to be something I've never been before and to enjoy something I've never enjoyed before. I've wanted to run a 5K for  so many years now and I'd love to make that a goal for the year and follow through with it. Of course, I've made this goal a few times before, even registered for a 5K, and never followed through, so I already feel a bit discouraged. But maybe I won't let that discouragement stop me.

Oh, little baby steps, one step at a time. I'm going to try to not look to far ahead, try to stay optimistic, but not overburden myself.