(Just Like) Starting Over

Lying in bed this morning, listening to the rain, eating a bowl of last night’s stir fry, and playing Words with Friends on my iPhone, John Lennon starting singing in my head:
“It’s been too long since we took the time
No one’s to blame, I know time flies so quickly…”

I reached over and grabbed a Kleenex off the nightstand. A pity party began as a lump in my throat. I blew my nose and wiped a tear and thought, ‘I miss my bike. I miss my elliptical. But it’s been so long, my body’s going to hate me. It will be just like starting over and I don’t want to start over. I want to lie here and eat Chinese food and maybe some chocolate and I think I have real peanut butter downstairs…’

I caught it all the last three weeks – a cold that refuses to go away, two different stomach bugs, some weird flu-like thing with aches and a fever, AND…as if that wasn’t enough fun…Aunt Flo came for a visit.

(You want to stop reading, don’t you? I don’t blame you. But I promise, it only goes uphill from here. Pinky swear.)

A pity party’s a great tool for reflection…WHEN I don’t wallow in the pity part too long. “Poor Me” has taught me many lessons over the years, such as what and who are most important in my life, and what I should let go of and what I should hold on to.

Today, Poor Me took me back to the days before I started exercising and how blah I felt all the time. Blah was my state of being. I didn’t know there was a non-blah way to live until I got up one morning several years ago and deliberately walked a half a mile.

Poor Me reminded me that I don’t want blah to be my lifestyle again. Then Poor Me asked me to dig a little deeper.

“Why haven’t you hit the exercise – other than a few power walks – for three weeks?” she asked.

Well…I was sick.

"Yes…but what else?”

Um…in between illnesses, I didn’t manage my time well enough to fit in a workout.

“OK…what else?”

I also…deep down inside…didn’t want to exercise because it will suck starting over.

“It won’t suck as much as you think,” Poor Me assured me.

...sigh...

You're right. My mind needs to chillax and let my muscles do the work. I will work out…slowly…building up to where I was before, and in the meantime, reap the benefits of endorphins, as always happens, even in a short workout. How quickly I forget.

40-day “I Give Up” update:

I was happy to see so many of you here and on Lynn’s Weigh on Facebook take the challenge to either give up a food you’ve been struggling with or reflect on a food-related behavior for the 40 days of Lent.

I’m hanging in there with my two resolutions.  I’ve rejected all restaurant bread, which, to be honest, hasn’t been too hard since I haven’t been out much in just a week. The only temptation was on Saturday:

Two innocent looking (Look how small! Aren’t they cute?) pieces of seasoned white focaccia bread arrived on my salad plate, which I quickly moved to another plate (Why yes, I order a side of steamed veggies every time I order a salad. I kid you not.).

That still wasn’t far enough away, so I asked BF to remove them. So he hid them behind the ketchup.

As for sweets, again, I’ve done very well. I bought a quart of Breyer’s fat-free strawberry ice cream and a bar of dark chocolate. I savor one bite of one (not both) of them every day. And I mean “savor” as in I am mindful of that bite to the very end.

Reflecting on my sweet tooth this week, I’ve realized that what I want to control is not my sweet tooth, but rather my actions. I’ve taken to heart the advice given by Millie Jackson, a Lynn’s Weigh Facebook follower, who wrote in a post the other day: “I thought, ‘Oh, I need to eat something sweet on Fat Tues.’ And then I asked why? And didn't.”

Sometimes all it takes to get past a craving or change a habit is to ask the simple question, “Why?” as the moment unfolds. It’s amazing the answer you’ll get when you’re open to it.

John Lennon and I are off to end the blahs and hit the bike. Ah…my bike…

“We'll be together all alone again
Like we used to in the early days
(And) when I see you darling
It's like we both are falling in love again

It’ll be just like starting over…”