When I woke up this morning, I was dreading my morning workout. Mondays are cardio days. The rest of the week, there are weights involved and weights are my favorite. I missed most of last weeks workout in my online workout program that I follow, so I started last week over with last Monday’s cycle workout.
Over and over, the trainer said, “Either accept your life as it is or accept the responsibility and change it.” And while I’ve heard things LIKE that before, today, it resonated with me a little more than usual. I’ve been pretty consistent in my workouts, but my nutrition is sometimes in the shitter and I make tons of excuses why.
I have this story that I keep telling myself that I’m just a junk food junkie and at least it’s not alcohol anymore so I should be able to eat some sweets every now and then.
Except, I eat sweets the way I used to drink tequila…. with no off switch.
When talking about liquor, I always joke that I didn’t have a “drinking” problem, I had a “stopping” problem. And it’s true. I wasn’t one of those people who “had” to have a drink after work. I actually never drank at home. I was a party drinker. I didn’t drink just because I liked the flavor or because I was “social” drinking.
I was intentionally drinking to a.) lower my inhibitions or b.) get shitfaced. Even though, I would start at A.) and very quickly end up at B.) Stopping was always the problem. When it comes to sweets, it’s actually hard for me to not start and to stop once I do. It’s like I have a bunch of tiny little obsessed-with-chocolate aliens in my brain that causes me to dwell on the sweet treats while I eavesdrop on their conversations.
Alien 1: “You should get a chocolate chip cookie.”
Alien 2: “Better yet, you should get a pack of chocolate chip cookie sandwiches stuffed with frosting.”
Alien 2 again: “Oooh, actually, make it a 4 pack of creme horns.”
Alien 3: “Well, if you are going to get cookies, you might as well get ice cream.”
Alien 4: “And if you are going to get ice cream, you’ll need to wash all that sugar down with something salty.”
Alien 5: “Cool Ranch Doritos, Anyone?”
All Aliens: “YES!”
These fucking guys have been residing in my head for as long as I can remember. And over the last 3 years, I’ve been working really hard to find them and kill them because I know that “what you are not changing, you are choosing.” And I want so badly to choose my health.
Today was a subtle reminder that I am on the right track.
The scale FINALLY fell under 200lbs. One hundred and ninety nine to be exact, but I’ll take it.
I CHOSE to just stay away from the sweets completely last week. I chose to not have a single snack, because it finally dawned on me that my brain treats sugar and tequila the same. As long as I don’t have the first one, I don’t spiral and go to hell with the joke.
Does anyone else have that problem? You have one sweet thing early in the day and then you just either obsess about more sweets or act on it and throw your nutrition straight in the trash for the whole day or is that just me?
So today when I felt the aliens trying to start their snacky talk, I had some carrots just to spite them. I accepted responsibilty for my thoughts and changed my actions.
It doesn’t have to be a big change. One small choice every day compounds to big life changes. So don’t think you have to do it all at once. Just start.
RouletteWeekend 