Fighting my DEMONS

Things have been interesting lately.

A few days ago I was going to write this wonderfully positive post. And today's post is still going to have a very positive vibe to it, but it's just........different.

Let's back track to a little over a week ago. It was September 9th and my sister in law and I were going to the Indians game because the give away that day was the 1977 jersey. We bought these tickets back in July as birthday gifts to ourselves since we were both born in 1977. Turns out this game also happened to be when the Indians were trying to increase their win streak to 17 games.

So we get to the game and we took some pictures. And something just hit me. I REALLY liked the selfie we took. I try not to take many selfies because I never felt like I could "get them right". I think what it really came down to was that I just didn't like how I looked in them. And, if we're being honest here, I just didn't like how I looked in ANY picture. I always forced myself to still take them periodically with the kids and such because I do want to document things in my life regardless of how I feel about myself.

On this same day I also noticed that I no longer had to stress about things fitting me. Even just last summer I would have worried about the free jersey fitting me (with good reason because it's not "too" big on me now). The weather ended up being colder than I anticipated because it was windy and we were in the shade. I ended up buying a sweatshirt and was so excited when I could get an XL and know that it would fit me big and roomy, just the way I like my sweatshirts to fit. I had gotten to the point that even the 2XL's weren't fitting with as much room as I like in a sweatshirt. This year I probably could have even just gotten a large.
The Indians won that day and it was one of the most amazing atmosphere's I've ever been a part of. The Indians continued to win and on September 13th they had a day game that also happened to be the day they were going for win #21 in a row, which would be an American League record. My sister in law and I decided we were going to go to this game as well. My parents ended up joining us and the Indians ended up WINNING! But even before all that happened I just felt good. I was feeling like my life couldn't get much better. I mean, it was a BEAUTIFUL day and I was able to decide at the last minute to go potentially witness history in the making. SIL and I took yet another picture together and for the first time in as long as I can remember (maybe ever) I looked at myself in that picture and thought how pretty/attractive/cute/(whatever positive word you want to use) I looked. It feels SO weird even typing that out. How many people look at themselves in a picture and think, "Man, I look GOOD". Maybe lots of people do that. I don't. But I did. And it felt amazing!

Ok. So you're probably starting to wonder why on Earth I titled this blog post "Fighting my DEMONS".

Even with how good I have been feeling about myself lately I still struggle every single day with trying to eat right and do what I need to do to move myself in the right direction. One would think that when I start to feel really good about myself I would only want that to continue (by losing more weight, getting faster at running, etc). I do want it to continue and I DO want to eventually reach my goals, but I think I just tend to lose my focus.

I talked in my last post about trying to find the right mix. I thought I had made the decision to do what I knew worked in the past. Well, I DID make that decision. But I sit here on September 18th continuing to doubt myself about whether or not I am doing the "right" thing. I don't think I am. I think I'm taking too many "off" days and not eating low enough calories on my "on" days. I am stressing about it when I said I wasn't going to stress about it. I'm obsessing over data and numbers instead of just TRUSTING THE PROCESS.

How many times must I say the same things to myself? In April I trusted the process. Well, not really, I doubted it the entire month but just continued with my goals that month anyway. I tracked everything I ate every single day for the entire month. I didn't even necessarily stay within my calorie range every day. Actually, I went out of my calorie range 13 days during that month and still ended up losing 6 pounds. (see what I mean with the data and numbers??)

So I fight the demons in my head. I fight the thoughts that tell me I should try to do this faster. I fight the demons that tell me it doesn't matter how slow I do it as long as it's going in the right direction. I fight the demons that are constantly fighting each other! I will continue to fight these fights and hopefully continue to make progress with how I feel about myself. I still see this going in the right direction. I still fully believe that THIS time I will do this.