The Crab Shell

Back during my original Muchness Challenge, I described myself as a crab (my sign is actually the Cancer crab) because I have this tough outer shell that can really take a beating, until someone finds the soft cracks between the big shield sections.  Then once those have been poked too often and too hard....I ooze.  Feelings, thoughts, long held anger and/or frustrations....it all comes flying out, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Late last night or early this morning, that happened. It prompted a conversation that was long overdue and finally addressed the things I wanted to when I talked about accountability.  It was really needed, at least for me. It will take some time to see if it helps or hurts more, but I know that at least I have been honest and made my feelings known, something I'm not always good at because I worry about everyone else more.  But there continues to be hope, and as long as there is hope, I will fight.

Because of the lateness of that conversation, I did not wake up for a 5:30am workout, I blew it off.  But on the other hand, my foot got another day of rest. I feel like it might be about 10% better today than yesterday, not much but I'll take anything I can get.

I've started following a lot of inspirational / transformational people on Instagram, people who have naturally (no pills, surgery, etc.) lost a large amount of weight.  A couple of them show videos of their workouts and I'm learning some new stuff to try at home, so can't wait to do that.  I'm especially interested in any of the ones that are no impact so I can get my heart rate up as much as possible without bothering my foot.  I need to sweat!  But seriously, if you need inspiration to eat right and exercise, these people are great!

Off for a hopefully peaceful and long sleep tonight!

Sunday Night Blahs

Sunday night....I am so not ready to go back to work tomorrow. Even more, I'm not ready to go back to the gym. But I need to go to work, and I HAVE to get in a workout.  So I'm going to do one in the garage. With my foot I'm all no impact so I figure core, abs and arms are on deck.

Alarm is set, clothes are ready....now to just hope it's warmer than this morning's 26 degrees when I go out there....lol.

A short but busy week ahead....boys are spending the night at a friend's house Tuesday night. I'm alternating between excitement and dread, could either be a fun evening on our own or the complete opposite. Fingers crossed for fun.

All Messed Up

Oh my gosh....just no excuse for the time passing with no updates here.  But it has been a very busy week with Christmas and getting ready for the new year at work.

I had a lovely dinner out with a lady who has truly been a gift to my life. She showed me how to be the best me, but not by telling me, but by letting me work it out through my Muchness challenges. It had been too long since I'd seen her and talking with her, straight up real talk, and laughing with her was so healing. She has a way of getting you to see the problem with a fresh perspective without putting any pressure.  All in all, a good time.

Christmas Eve had its ups and downs.  Loved having my family here for dinner, a fire in the pit and laughs and love all around. The end of the evening was a little more rough, doing everything on my own was a bummer. For his own reasons, my husband missed out on setting Santa up, and that will have to be addressed.  I kind of did address it on Christmas Day by asking him to pay special attention to some limits, which he did, but he wasn't happy about it and it showed in his mood all day. 

I know I can be moody and difficult, but I'll usually happily discuss it if you ask me.  I really struggle with not getting that same insight from my husband so it's a guessing game as to where I, and all things, stand. I feel as if we haven't made any progress at all since our discussion.  Something to tackle after the New year for sure.

And exercise? Not going as well as I'd hoped. Still having really bad foot pain, despite anti inflammatories, using my ortho boot and all.  Really sucks.  But I'm going to continue doing whatever I can. I could totally swim at the gym but I haven't worked up the courage to jump in a lane yet.  Another goal to mark on my list.

It's not all rainbows and flowers here, but I'm really working in it!

Confidence, Accountability and Kudos

I have become unreliable on this blog....my daily blog has turned into every couple of days, but not with intent.  I just saw that my last post was Saturday!!!!  I thought it was Sunday night!  Time is flying way too fast right now.

I have a lot going on in my head, the usual with trying to make sure everyone has Christmas presents, and I made a gargantuan batch of cookies and fudge for work, plus housecleaning, laundry, work,, work and did I mention work?

I talked about confidence the other day,and it's weighed on me since.  Another thing I've been thinking about a lot is accountability.  That's a word you hear a lot of at work, but I think there also has to be accountability in our relationships.  We need to be accountable to ourselves, to others, for the things we promise to do, and the things that we need from others.  That last one sounds weird, but give me a bit to explain....it really does tie to confidence.

So I was reading through Instagram (the only social  media I'm cruising these days) and there was a meme about "being confident in your own skin".  It made me think, how can I do that?  I don't like my body at all right now, my clothes don't fit, I have an extra chin, my arms have wings and the thighs and that belly....I can't even go there right now.  It's bad enough to not like myself for all that, but to know that it affects the way others view me and feel about me compounds it immeasurably.  So how the hell do am I supposed to  feel confident with all that?????

I feel confident when I feel strong, and attractive, and desired.  Mostly vain, yes, but those things make me feel great, like I can conquer the world, be noticed and yes, for lack of a better word...admired.  When NONE of those things is happening or being felt, my confidence melts to nothingness, which becomes a vicious cycle:  self hate, feeling disgusting and causing disgust, feeling invisible equals self pity which equals self soothing which usually equals eating for comfort and then start all over again.  It's ugly.  And these are triggers I have to watch for every single hour of every single day right now because those first couple steps in the cycle, I'm totally immersed.

Working out helps.  Feeling strong and accomplished for completing a tough bootcamp workout, knowing I pushed myself and straining to see some tiny bit of proof on my body that things are changing is a good feeling, but it's fleeting.

So how does this and accountability meet up?  Well, I need more.  It's been a couple of weeks since a very difficult conversation happened and initially I thought, well, that's awesome, we're both taking responsibility and "action items".  But I soon realized that I'm really the only one with those action items.  I don't see the same effort from the other side, but I'm not being accountable to what I need.  I realized that I answered scenarios, offered suggestions, but never truly said "I need you to......". And I'm mad. At me, at him and at the fact that over 2 weeks later, I'm not sure there's progress.  There's intent, I don't doubt that, but still, it feels as if I'm doing all the work and waiting for the "Atta Girl!" kudos.  Fuck that.

I need to be accountable.  I need to make my needs and expectations known, just like he made his.  And I need to be honest and forthright because I can't be mad that he's not doing what I expect when I haven't made it clear.  So doing that will help me feel like I have some control, some path and some self respect which equals self love which equals confidence.

I need to do it soon. I just don't want to blow the holidays :/

Distractions Abound

Oh my gosh.....I have been so busy at work, and so tired at night that I've been a lagger here.

Year end at my work is chaos, super busy and requires a lot of attention to detail and specifics. I have four big projects going live on January 1 so they are keeping me busy.

I'm keeping up with eating well and passing my 10,000 steps a day, but I won't lie, I've had a few indulgences the last couple days.  But I decided that there is no point in beating myself up, for 2 reasons 1) Life is real and carrots and cucumbers won't always cut it and 2) I actually exercised good portion control and my choices were decent.  Just one cookie at work, a couple extra spoonfuls of fried rice at dinner last night, and today, one or two cookies worth of cookie dough. For me, awesome because I would have eaten 5 times that, easily.  Not only am I getting full faster, the small bites satisfy me, and that feels good.

I beat my Walk My Map goal of 10 miles a week again, 128% met. I had intended to get a 4 or 5 mile walk in but my dammed foot is acting up again, the plantar fascitis is causing problems and I had to break down and keep it to under a mile this morning.  I really want to be able to do the Iron Mtn Hike with my boot camp class buddies on Thursday a.m. so I'm being a good patient and staying off it as best I can and taking my anti inflammatories. A little better tonight so fingers crossed for even better tomorrow.

And check this out...we got tickets to see Star Wars tomorrow...some obscure little theater an hour away from us had tickets, we checked on a whim....it'll be a fun surprise for the boys :)

Sabotage

This is what I walk past every time I leave my desk.  This table is always covered with some sort of junk food to share.

I have a Super effective tactic for avoiding it though. Gross but effective....want to know?

I imagine that, if not everyone, at least one person dipping in doesn't wash their hands in the restroom.  Done. I don't want any.  LOL

I'll be eating my baby cucumbers and carrots with seasoned rice vinegar instead.  WIN!!!

Not a Quitter

Wow, missing that one post has me all out of whack, I think since I posted in the morning yesterday, I mentally ticked off my "to do list" and forgot all about it.

I explained before that my working from days are tough.  It's way too easy to munch the day away when the pantry and fridge are so close.  But I also mentioned yesterday that I couldn't find anything even though I was looking.  I feel like I was looking even harder in the morning, and I don't know why.  I will say, the boys both still have almost all their Halloween candy (how is it they can be satisfied with one piece a day???  I have managed to teach them, but not myself :/), and it is full of things like M&Ms, Snickers, etc....you get the point.  Well, I'm high fiving myself because I just said no to them.

Now that I'm being consistent with logging my food every day in my LoseIt! app, I just can't get myself to see those calories wasted away, even as I earn more for my exercise.  So I am going to take that non scale victory (NSV) and run with it! Well, not literally run.  I hate running.  My knees, my neck and all my wiggly bits hate running. A lot.  But I'm mentally running and waving a flag of success :-)

I made it to day 2 of boot camp today and it felt good, even though every muscle from the top of my butt cheeks to the bottom of my thighs in the back hates my guts.  Hates me.  So sore but it feels so good to know I actually "jumped" the jump squats, did the plank crab crawls and for the first time, got to do the battle ropes...I loved those! Plus all the other stations and I.DIDN'T.QUIT!!!!!  There's a Muchy squish of confidence in that, I'll take it!

I have lots of thoughts about confidence (walking long distances makes me think a lot), but I'll touch on them later, I need time, and heading into this busy workday, time is limited.