Crisis of Faith

For the past week or so I've been struggling to keep myself motivated to eat well.  I've been trying to jolly myself along with inspirational quotes but this weekend I really let things go.  Friday was a company Christmas party and the only choices were fried.  Fried cheese, fried potato skins, fried chicken...although I counted everything I ate, I ended up skipping dinner to compensate.  On Saturday night I allowed myself to eat with something resembling reckless abandon...the food was yummy and I was enjoying my visit with an old friend, so I decided to absolve myself of guilt and vowed to eat only healthy foods the next day.  Sunday started well, with fruit and almonds and green tea...but then later in the afternoon I was hit with such a feeling of overwhelming mental fatigue contemplating all the hard work I have ahead of me.  Constantly watching my food, making an effort to exercise 5 days a week, trying to make choices that will help me reach my goals - I became exhausted just thinking about it! Day after day, year after year, I know it will never be easy for me to reach my goal weight or to maintain it.  But you know what would be easy?  Giving up on the exercise and just eating whatever I want.  So very...very.......very...............easy.

So I ate.  Somehow I found myself with a piece of Popeye's chicken in one hand and a biscuit in another...fast forward a couple hours and I finished off an entire Amy's organic pizza.  Although the scale said 248 this morning, I know that the damage I did this weekend will catch up with me eventually.  Today was lunch out with some coworkers, tomorrow will be the same - I feel myself getting pulled back into the old habits and I'm scared.  It feels like the momentum I was gathering has stalled, and it would be so easy to order a pizza and wash it down with a pint of Ben & Jerry's...so very very easy...is this how heroin addicts end up on the streets again?

I'm trying to head this off at the pass before it becomes a full-on binge.  I feel like I'm at a crossroads, and I can take the high road and dive back into my new life, or I can slide back towards my old self and then spend weeks fighting to get back to where I am now...I need an intervention, I need to take a stand!  I can't take the easy path, eating comfort food and lying on the couch, because although right now that is the path of least effort, it WILL NOT be easy to recover from a heart attack or stroke.  It will not be easy to take medication for type II diabetes.  It will not be easy to recover from a knee replacement when I am 60 years old and 300 pounds.

But what I really need to remember, every time I see a cookie or a slice of pizza...IT IS NOT EASY to weigh 248 pounds - nothing fits, I'm out of breath walking up 2 flights of stairs, I can't sit comfortably in an airline seat, I can't cross my legs, my wedding ring doesn't fit...in fact NOTHING about being overweight is easy.  Absolutely nothing.