Live In The Now & Be Awesome

It has been a busy few days. I unloaded about 3 huge carloads of stuff (I can fit a lot of stuff into my car if I have to!) at a garage sale this weekend and came back with over $300 in my pocket. That was the good part. Well, along with spending time with my neices, my sister in law, and my brother, that was the good part. The bad part was that I ate pizza & cookies. I was "smart" and kept my calories low for Friday and Saturday to accommodate that. Also, the pizza was very thin crust and the cookies were full of fiber (my mom's oatmeal raisin walnut cookies...if I could only eat one cookie for the REST of my life, it would be these). I also had the chance to eat pizza AGAIN on Saturday (I had the pizza slice on Friday evening), but I declined and instead ate one of my two cookies. I had a cookie for breakfast and a cookie for lunch. It was delicious -but they were two of the smaller cookies in the batches. I feel as if I'm trying to justify things in my head when I say that, like I'm giving an excuse: I cheated, but HEY, it's not as bad as it COULD have been cuz it was a relatively healthy food-cheat! That's like cheating on your significant other and saying, "Yeah I cheated on you, but she/he isn't as pretty/handsome as you and it was one teeny tiny little time". That justification matters very little I think!! A cheat is a cheat.

Ok so cheating on a diet is not very comparable to fidelity in a committed relationship (and I don't mean to marginalize that at all), but still, it IS a cheat and still makes you feel kinda guilty. So I had a HUGE slice of pepperoni & green olive pizza (which I LOVED by the way) and two oatmeal raisin walnut (ORW) cookies. Yeah, I probably kicked myself out of ketosis. And yes, that's probably 2 MORE pounds I will not lose on my "losing weight time table", but life is life! I LOVE my mom's ORW cookies and she NEVER makes them with walnuts when I want her to, so I wanted to enjoy them. No one makes them like she does. Just like no one makes spiced gumdrop cookies like my Grandma Rotta. When these ladies are no longer here or cannot bake anymore, these things will never be the same again.

Dieting is fine. Losing weight is fine. Enjoying yourself in life is better than fine though. I think it's good to remember a balance must be evident. Always checking your scale or your fibit or other progress feedback is not healthy. Keeping focus is one thing...but focusing on RIGHT NOW and enjoying the moment without obsessing on how you're doing is another. The goal and the challenge for us all in life is to master this sometimes rocky road we call life and live IN THE MOMENT. That means not focusing on how many steps you took, what the scale reads, how many people commented on your Facebook status, or even checking social media constantly. Live now. Interact now. Love yourself in the NOW. To fully participate in life, a person needs to be present. They need to make the choices they must to stay healthy or to help them with their goals, but people must understand that anxiety will ALWAYS be there if you let it -obsessing about things will also ALWAYS be there if you let it. Don't let it. Practice at not letting it. At the end of the day, it is truly about how you deal with things and how you learn to deal with things -and that takes work. As you build good habits, these things happen naturally...but you're gonna miss out on a lot of stuff if you spend your energy obsessing about things. Been there, done that, wrote the book on that.

It's difficult to get to the point where you decide that "oh well, I'm gonna be ME and live here NOW. To hell with what other people think and what other people want me to do because I'm doing alright". You make the decision. THAT'S your circle of influence: how you choose to react to events and feelings and then what YOU do about it. But that is difficult...and it takes practice and time. I still get tripped up sometimes -a lot of the time, actually. It's a process that takes constant practice & vigilance.

Today I had a work event that I had to "dress up" for in a professional manner. I think I accomplished it, but as I was driving to the event, I found myself thinking "if only I hadn't had drinks and carbs in Canada and pizza and cookies this weekend I could probably look better". I had to stop myself. That's bullshit. *I* decide if I look good or not. MY attitude is all that's important to me. So I killed the "lady-suit" I wore and radiated confidence and awesomeness. It was a good day. Then, I got to come home to wear a tank top and pajama pants while I enjoyed the free time all sprawled out in my LazyBoy. I will say, however, that it DID help to lose those 13 pounds...the outfit fit much better and I did feel more secure in wearing it. That's what I get paid back in with this diet: I get to feel proud of myself because it's more than looking good...it's (for me) about looking good because *I* made it happen, not because God gave me a "perfect" body. I already have one...I just have to embrace it and keep plugging away on those renovations I talked about earlier. The "bones" of my "house" are good...the structure is good, it's just time for an 8-12 month renovation process.

So yeah, I cheated again and really did not intend to do so. Maybe I was weak in the moment, but both the pizza & cookies were DELICIOUS and it's up to me to not let it throw me off course. I loved it, I accepted that decision I made, and I'm moving on. I'm doing alright. I AM alright...and I'm actually better than alright. I am awesome. Even when I watch the news tonight and see myself in a camera shot of the event today & think "oh God, THAT'S how I look???", I am awesome because the only thing that matters at the end of the day is how I feel and think about myself. I'm gonna make it a GOOD thought. ;)