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| I'll work on getting the rest of my body as tan as my shoulders for next week. O.o |
So, I'm onto Week 8! Hard to believe that after these seven days, I will have been eating clean for almost 2 months! (I started eating clean about 4 days into the blog, I think).
I have so much to process right now!
One of the things I keep dying to write about is that as I drive myself through this goal, I'm finding tiny little slip-ups that I choose to ignore. Inevitably, they become bigger slip-ups that are harder to ignore, and so I make excuses. And the whole reason I do all this is because deep down I am still finding it hard to believe that I will actually achieve this goal.
Last week, I didn't work out Monday through Friday. Unbelievable! What was my excuse? Monday, I don't remember, but the rest of the week it was, "Oh, my car is in the shop. Too hard to do anything."
No it wasn't! I kept going to bed too late, I stayed at a friend's house so that I could catch the bus to work, and I definitely could have worked out. I totally could have done it. But the excuses are so comfortable to me.
You know what's NOT comfortable? Doing the work anyway. Doing the work even if my car is in the shop and it's harder to work out. Doing the work even if I'm working a 12 hour day and my brain starts saying, "If you don't get sugar, you will shrivel up and die. Must eat fat and sugaaaaarr. NOW!"
It's actually uncomfortable that it scares me.
It was actually SCARY on Sunday to refuse to have the cup of coffee. I like to think it was scary because I truly believed I was going to have a terrible energy level if I didn't have the coffee. But, really, as I get to know this pattern a little bit better, it's scary because I'm actually changing who I am by changing my habits. And that means I might actually succeed at something difficult. And for some reason that's scary.
The Betsy today has been relying on excuses. I know this because the other day I was running late for work. I didn't want to get out of bed because I was so tired, so I kept hitting snooze instead of just having the discipline to go to bed ON TIME and get up ON TIME. So...my crafty little brain thought, "Well, I probably won't be late, but even if I am, it's Arts Fest weekend and I'll have an excuse."
So I guess my theme for this week is NO EXCUSES!
It's just one more barrier to break through for me to see success. As I get to know my patterns better, it's easier to see how I'm going to fall off track. And that doesn't mean falling off the plan and saying, "I don't have an excuse." It means STAY ON THE PLAN, NO IF's AND's or BUT's!
Sunday was a good exercise in not making excuses. My friend inspired this thought for me without knowing it. She does not do excuses. She is always at work on time. She always does her best. She always speaks kindly of other people. She makes herself presentable before work, always. She simply does not do excuses. And, when I look at the differences between myself and the people who inspire me, I find that I probably do make more excuses for not succeeding than they do. (I try to look for more similarities, though!)
So, on Sunday, I had almost completely convinced myself that it would be a good idea to get a supercharged cup of coffee from Saint's, complete with cream and sugar. I thought about having to explain it to Amy. Eventually I remembered that it might keep me up and going for the next couple of hours, but I would crash later and regret it. Once I had that realization and was able to let the Fantasy of the Coffee go, I also remembered that on this clean eating plan, my energy is much more level. I would probably not have to worry about dipping down to such low energy states as I have dealt with in the past.
I spent the rest of the day fighting with myself. I was putting together a bowl thinking, "It just won't be satisfying without any peanut sauce." At the last second, I was able to walk away from the bar and cook my bowl with no peanut sauce. No sugar. No carbohydrates. I ate my chicken, vegetables, and rice. And I was satisfied. I did not need peanut sauce.
Then I was leaving work to go to the gym. I had a raw turkey burger with me that I didn't get to eat while I was at work, and my first thought was, "Welp, guess I'll have to go home and put it in the fridge. I'll just go for a run. It'll totally be the same easy workout." But, I knew that if I went home, there was NO WAY I was getting out the door again. So, with MUCH EFFORT, I went to the gym. I sat on the bench in the lockeroom. I did Facebook for awhile. I finally got on an elliptical. That elliptical was coming apart. I thought, "See, it's a bad omen. I should go home." I got on an arc trainer instead. I thought, "I've already wasted 10 minutes on that other machine, I should just go home." I kept moving my legs back and forth.
At some point I got sucked into these thoughts about being a failure. All my past failures started to come up and haunt me. I was probably thinking, "I'm never gonna succeed at this, I don't know why I put myself through this..." So, then I started taking stock of myself. I just worked 23 hours over the weekend, made $350 to put toward the damage in my bank account, and on top of that, I ate clean on that day, AND I made it to the gym when all I wanted to do was lay down and die? And I was feeling like a FAILURE?
I thought that was just plain crazy. So I started choosing to think about my successes. Darwin said something to the effect of, "The smartest thing people can do is learn to control their thoughts." At first, I thought it was crazy, but now I see he was really onto something. I definitely needed to redirect my thoughts to thoughts of praise of appreciation of how hard I have been working.
But I'm finding that it's MORE than just the excuses. I'm afraid of what will happen if I actually achieve this goal that I've been trying to accomplish for years and years. What if I find out I am capable of a lot more than what I'm doing? What if that means that people will expect more of me? What if that means that I will expect more of me?
What if I can't do everything I expect of me??? How will I handle the inevitable failure I am setting myself up for?????????????????????????
See. I'm afraid of success because after every success is a bigger challenge, and I can't see any other outcome than eventually failing in a big way and that scares me.
But I'm going to carry on anyway, and imagine that the successes I might find along the way far outweigh the risk of failure I may be taking.
I must report that I went to bed TOO LATE last night, and I'm going to bed too late again tonight. But tonight, I get to sleep until I wake up (not good for fitting five meals in, but I'm thinking I might be able to manage). So, today, I ate my first meal at 8:30am. Next meal at 12:20pm (meeting went long), next meal at 4:00pm, and last meal at 9pm...that's just the reality of it. Tomorrow I will try to do better. Tonight, I DID go to a Kerry class even though I was tired, and I made myself work hard throughout it. Tomorrow I don't know what kind of work out I will be doing, but it will definitely be in the gym, out of this heat!
Ok, finally time to say goodnight!
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