Keep Showing Up

A few weeks ago, I talked about my desire to lose quite a bit of weight with the promise that I would check in periodically. Here I am! Checking in!

Oh, it’s not been easy, this path I’m choosing to follow. Lately I have been feeling fairly defeated. It started with realizing that the weight I thought I had been was a fair bit higher. And while it’s been emphasized to me from a variety of sources that I can’t let my confidence be shattered by a three digit number, I still may have let it do just that. What’s more, I have been dealing with some pretty outrageous anxiety which resulted in an adjustment to my medication (I switched from Zoloft to Welbutrin, and if you’re curious to hear the whys and wherefores with all that business, feel free to read this post). And then, as I began to transition from one medication to another, my period hit and all the lovely hormonal upheaval that accompanies that. Ugh.

When you’re a person who self-medicates with food, a lot of emotional upheaval is tough to navigate, particularly when you’re trying to lose weight and understand that eating an entire tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream isn’t going to solve any of your problems (and in the end, probably  just make you feel worse). What’s more, the idea of tackling my food issues head on was contributing significantly to my anxiety (still is, in fact). In the midst of all this I was reading Mel Well’s book The Goddess Revolution: Make Peace with Food, Love Your Body and Reclaim Your Life.

I love a book that encourages me to embrace myself as I am while moving toward improvement in my physical and emotional health, and there was so much good stuff in this book. But it also gave me so much anxiety, because I couldn’t, still can’t, really, comprehend what my life might look like if I didn’t use food for anything other than fuel. And there were other issues to be had, but I won’t get into them here. If you’re really curious to see my review of the book, then here is a link to my goodreads review.

So things have not been going well as I had hoped. My weight hasn’t dropped in a way that I want. I don’t feel as empowered as I would like to feel. That said, I still feel as though I’m making progress. I’m back here, talking about it. I’m willing to pick myself back up and trudge forward. I’m walking or doing yoga in the morning. I’m being consistently inconsistent, which is something I talk about with my students when they’re feeling badly about their academic progress. You feel like you’re running in place and not getting anywhere, but the fact that you keep showing back up means you’re going to get there eventually. Keep showing up.