There and Back Again

I tried to blog for a little while the last time I was on what I like to semi-jokingly refer to as The Plan.  Why do I call it that, in all it's silly capitalized glory?  I don't know exactly.  Maybe because it's not just a "diet", it includes exercise too.  Maybe because I think the word diet is too loaded.  Maybe I'm just goofy.

Anyway, it was part of the stuff I did then to try and be successful.  I posted on a message board to say I had worked out.  I blogged to record what I had eaten.  I also actually did the things I said I was doing, or eating.

And then I fell off the plan, and I stopped blogging or posting about it.  Why?  There were reasons, and they were valid without being good.  In the end, all reasons sound the same- because I gave up.

Then I ate.  I felt giddy at first with the supposed freedom of not having to follow any plan, of being able to eat anything I wanted.  So I did.  In a little over seven months, I regained and then some- 20.5 lbs from the lowest I had been.

Until one day I told myself the truth- that I wasn't "free" of anything- I was addicted to food, and the consequences and effects of that made me absolutely miserable.  I had to start The Plan again.

On July 6th, I bought the healthy foods I would need- and a "secret" box of cookies.  I ate that box long after they tasted good to me, or I could even taste them.  I ate it because it was my "last chance" to. Sometimes, when I want to eat something just because I'm emotional and turn to food to cope, I think of that night, of a girl cramming cookies into her mouth desperately, just to be eating.

I think of how I was sad even as I did it, how I knew deep down that it made no sense at all, and it makes me remember that there is no reason worth going back to that place.

I ate right the next day with all my healthy groceries.  I started exercising again the day after that.  I did quite well for a while, until... reasons.  There always are.  I stopped for four days, basically a week.

I got back on plan on Friday, August 5th and have stayed on it since.  I know this can change, if I let it.  There are always reasons, but none are good.

Why am I blogging again?  I don't know.  I like to write.  I read many, many blogs.  It's always touched me how the journey is the same- so many different people with perhaps nothing in common but this, but understanding this unites us.

The addiction, and the fight.

I've started a new blog.  The old one was very short-lived and I considered just going back to it.  It didn't stop me that I had stopped trying to lose weight, or because anything I wrote was less valid.  I just feel like some things were a tiny bit too... identifying.

We all have lives outside our blogs.  A lot of people are comfortable enough to be honest and open and real, and I truly respect and admire that.  But I'm not there, not ready for anyone I know in real life to stumble across this and read about my struggle, my real weight, etc.

I want to focus on this, just this, as honestly as I possibly can.  Sometimes it feels like there is only this- the energy devoted to eating on plan, to working out, to not doing the opposite.  Sometimes that is a struggle, but sometimes... it's a relief.

There's a simplicity to it.  I wrote in my offline journal at some point that the plan has no grey area.  There is only yes or no.  Did I eat on plan vs did I cheat?  Did I work out vs did I not?  Yes or no.  Every day is another yes, or no.

This blog's title is from, of all things, a Yo Gabba Gabba! (I have little nieces, clearly) song called the same.  How does it go?  "Don't stop, don't give up.  Keep trying... don't give up.  Never give up."  It's a very silly inspiration, but it works for me.  There is probably a point every day when I want to say, screw the plan, for whatever reason.  But in the end, what matters is that I don't.  I don't give up, and I keep trying.

Exercise: P90 Sculpt 3/4 (resistance training, 40 minutes or so)
Eating: 1,152 calories, 5 giant jugs (quarts) of water