One Person, Two Mindsets

So I’m two days post-stair machine and I’m pleased to say my bum cheeks are recovering nicely. I even managed to get up from my desk yesterday and walk across the office without looking like I’d just got off a horse. I wouldn’t have believed that five minutes on that thing could’ve had such an effect but clearly it worked something.

My plan was to go back last night for another session in the gym followed by a swim, but it took me almost two hours to get home from work because it was snowing a blizzard, and by the time I got in my motivation had waned a little. My boy had cooked supper, so I thought you know, maybe I’ll just have a light bite and sit down for half an hour before I go back out…hmm. Big mistake, right?

Two hours later (by this time in PJs) I acknowledged that it wasn’t going to happen. I’m not convinced I would’ve got my car off the drive anyway to be fair, the snow was still coming down, in fact I may well end up working from home today. If that happens, I’ll walk up to the pool at lunchtime and have my swim then instead. I much prefer that to turning out in the evening after a long day at work, especially in this shitty weather.

I’m struggling a bit this week, I’ve got to be honest. I’m good, I mean I haven’t over-eaten and I’m doing okay on the no sugar front, but I just want to fucking eat till my eyes pop out. I took lunch to work with me yesterday, along with a big bag of cherries, but the cherries didn’t even make it past the morning commute. I was clock-watching from around ten thirty and counting the minutes until I could reasonably eat lunch and then all afternoon I was preoccupied with what I might eat for supper.

It’ll pass, I know it will but it’s different to last week when it was all effortless. This week it’s anything but.

Don’t you think it’s really bloody annoying the way that happens? I’m the same person, in the same body as last week with the same ambition to climb out of this fat suit, except last week I breezed through the week without dwelling once on the things I couldn’t have. It was a textbook week. Yet here I am now, feeling pissed off because I’ve got to count points when all I really want to do is rip up the rule book and eat whatever the fuck I want until the end of time.

One person, two mindsets, depending on which way the wind is blowing. I can’t think of a single other example where my thinking is so fickle. Why is that? I’m fine one minute and I’m struggling the next. Then I’m fine again. Then I’m not. I often meet myself coming back and there’s no wonder I sometimes feel like a borderline basket case.

It’ll pass. Keep the faith, and just hang tough. We can do this together 🙂

 

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10 thoughts on “One Person, Two Mindsets

  1. I agree with Susan that this weather really packs a punch to our motivation. This week I haven’t been feeling well on top of it so it’s taken everything I have not to carb load my way through the day. Preplanning is helpful – but when it’s 10 degrees sometimes the yogurt and fruit is not so appealing and we want muffins and bagels. Take it one meal at a time and one day at a time – remember that exercise is a very small piece of the puzzle. I was thrilled with 3 workouts this week and then got sick – so hopefully I’ll get back to it again next week when this cold has past. Maybe keep your expectations a bit lower – like exercise 3 times a week not 6 or 7 – and that would be more doable

  2. Only two?? Man, this basket holds a whole shifting cast of characters! Remember that (eerily) self-efacing You?
    Oy! One of my personae is, Nevermore. I also routinely wake up to complaisant defiant vain critical, self doubt, hungry! resolute, and energetized…. i think you’ve written about all my incarnations, which has been a comfort. Keep on, SkinnyGirl. We are going to prevail.

  3. C.S. Lewis described this very thing in The Screwtape Letters, where he called it The Law of Undulation. Every area of our lives is a series of waves, highs from which we fall back to lows and climb back up to highs, over and over. When in the high or low, our minds trick us into thinking it will last forever that way.

    Whatever area is our biggest struggle will see our greatest highs and lows.

    Don’t give up when in the low patch!

  4. You are not alone in this battle with good versus bad behavior when it comes to sticking with exercise and trying to eat healthy. I think this time of the year and the shitty weather is not helping any of us feel more like exercising.
    I think its worth saying again, you must find some form of exercise you can stand to do notice I did not say “like”.
    I did my two mile walk yesterday and I swear it felt like I was walking from Florida to Georgia our neighboring state but I got through and was glad when it was over.
    Onward we go!

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