go back to the start

I feel stuck.

It's not by choice, either. Rather, it feels like someone took my tennis shoes one night and filled them with wet concrete. Then, they somehow slipped the shoes back on my feet and crept out of the room. The next morning I couldn't move. And I haven't been able to move since.

I can't pinpoint when it hapenned either. There is no one spot to place the blame. There is nothing I can look back on and say that's where it all started to get really really hard.

I've mentioned how hard this journey has become. There's a wall I have hit. I am tired of the frozen dinners I bring for lunch. I am over the amount of water I am drinking. I am somewhat bored with my workout routines. And I am wondering if this journey to lose 100 pounds is even worth it.

I can look back on the past three months and see the changes I've made. It's evident in the way I feel, how much easier it is to do little things (like tie my shoes or get out of my low-to-the-ground car). And I see it in my clothes. How much shirts are a little baggier and how there are dresses I can wear again - dresses I haven't worn in almost a year.

But to take that evidence and apply it to everything else? I'm not quite sure how to do that.

I haven't completely lost my drive. I'm still working out. Though recently, it has only been 5 or 6 times a week instead of 8 or 10 times a week. I'm still watching what I eat and documenting (almost) everything on Lose It!. Though recently, my choices have not been the best, and hamburgers (and fries) sound so much better than salmon, tilapia, and baked potatoes.

And the weight is still slowly coming off. Painstakingly slowly. I want to say it has most to do with my choices. But I don't know if it does. Because I've worked hard this summer. Harder than I've ever worked before. And while it has paid off in the ways listed above, it hasn't paid off in the way of a diminishing number on the scale.

I tell people all the time not to focus on the scale. I even remind myself of it. But the scale means something to me. It means a whole new wardrobe and a new me.

Maybe that's the problem. Maybe I am putting my identity into the number on the scale. Maybe I am losing sight of the reason I started this whole journey. Maybe I am too focused on the end results I want and not focused enough on the steps I need to take to get that end result.

Maybe I'm overthinking all of it.

There is so much more that goes into a journey like this than just counting calories, breaking a sweat at the gym, limiting my diet coke intake, and drinking liters of water a day. Those things are important, but more important than those is to understand the reasons a journey like this is necessary and to take the time to put yourself first and overcome the internal obstacles you need to overcome.

And so, while my calorie intake has been higher and my calories burned lower, I have taken the past few weeks to care for myself in other ways. Getting some much needed healing. Backing out of some commitments that were not where I needed to be at this moment. Letting people in. Slowly asking for help when it is warranted.

Those are hard things for me to do. So much harder than I can even begin to describe here. But they are necessary things. And, of cource, the most necessary things are also the hardest things.

This journey is also, I think, teaching me how to slow down. Because I want so badly to jump ahead and be at the end of the journey. I don't want to be less than a pound away from having lost 20 pounds. I want to be at the moment when I have lost 100 pounds and am in dire need of a new wardrobe.

That's how I have always been. I've always looked forward to the next stage in my life. The next big thing. I'm so rarely happy and content with the current stage. Even back to when I was 5-years-old and playing with Barbies. All I really wanted was to be a teenager going to high school (and living a life exactly like Kelly Kapowski). And so often, I was disappointed when I finally hit the long awaited moment and discovered that high school in Texas is nothing like Saved By The Bell.

So I am trying to learn how to slow down, how to say no, how to put myself first, how to have grace with myself, how to enjoy my life, how to not only look to the future, and how to eat right and exercise.

It's a journey with no real map. But it is a journey that, as hard as it might be, I will not give up on.

And one day, hopefully soon, my shoes will no longer be filled with concrete, and I will no longer be stuck.

(title from "my broken heart" by noah and the whale)