Hello, August round

Hello!

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post - sorry!  So much still happening, I keep looking for that 'quiet time' that never seems to happen.

I thought I'd give you a quick update instead of feeling like I need to have 4 hours spare to write an in depth post :)

So my last post I announced that I was all mature in thought, and had decided not to dwell on the fact that I had gone off track for the past 2 weeks.  That it wasn't going to help me move on.  And that I needed to suck it up.

Well that lasted all of a few days.

Turns out I wasn't that great at thinking like that, and I struggled, big time.

I don't know exactly what happened but I ended up having a really awful week.  Little things went wrong - in the grand scheme of things, not major upsets.  But because I wasn't feeling confident, and wasn't proactively doing something to fix that, all of these little things became really.big.things. Somewhere between a failed jeans shopping trip and tears in a bar thanks to poor body image (!), I let the week get to me.  Really, it was just an example (yet pretty extreme) week to reflect my past 6 months.

Back in March, I was in a car, on my way to my Nanna's funeral.  I was sitting next to my

Use all the gadgets.  I'm pulling out all stops.

other grandmother, who was attending as my grandparents had been friends.  My Grandma is one of the biggest loves of my life, but sadly I rarely get to see her as we live interstate from one another.  We were catching up, and she wanted to know what was new with me.

She asked "So what is new with you?  What is your 'thing' at the moment?  What is the biggest thing that's making you happy, right now?"

Good question!

I thought about it for a moment, and I answered and said that focusing on my health and fitness, is what is the light in my life right now.  Losing weight, getting fit, looking after myself.

I'm not saying life is all about weight loss and how you look....PLEASE don't think that I think like that.

But what I meant, was this weight loss journey that I've been on, has been so incredible in terms of my whole life.  Doing this for myself has given me confidence, a positive body

Day 1 of Week 1 exercise session - and there is a full rainbow. #meaningfulmuch?

image, much improved health, increased fitness, and so much more than I could ever describe.

Looking after myself has been making me happy.  It's just how it is.

My life isn't always going to be so focused on this - but at the moment, this is what I want to do.

I've thought about my Grandma's question a lot since that day, and I guess I've realised what's happened to me over the past 6 months.  I was in such a good place.  A few life struggle things happened, yes, as they always do, but I let them get to me so much that in the meantime, I haven't managed to focus on my health, and have found myself self-sabotaging.  It's this awful rollercoaster / cycle that has been so hard to break.  Basically:

1. General life struggles happened.
2. I let myself drop the ball with looking after myself.
3. Not looking after myself made my coping mechanisms poor.
4. This made the struggles seem bigger than they actually were.
5. These struggles then really got me down.
6. Because I was so down, I self sabotaged even more.
7. The more I self sabotaged, the less confidence I had to pick up my game.
8. Self sabotaging meant I wasn't focusing on my health - which was the thing that was helping me with confidence in the first place.
9. Struggles continued.
10. Self sabotaging continued.

And so the cycle continued...

Something like that. :)

Sound familiar?

Well, how to break the cycle?

I did my new sticker chart last night

Monday, two days ago, was the start of the August round of 12WBT.

I was always going to sign up for a new round - I believe in this program and it's given me the tools to turn my life around.  I just hadn't gotten around to signing up just yet.  On Saturday I woke up and was feeling really depressed.  These feelings were worrying me.  They'd been increasing, particularly last week.  For someone who had Depression for 8 years, increasing feelings like that occasionally scare me.  I'm fine - but I know how bad things can get if I don't keep an eye on it.

I lay in bed and picked up my phone to sign up to the new round.  I clicked all the buttons, but then I needed my credit card of course.  But that was in my bag, away from my bed.

Urgh.

I kind of think it's a little ironic that the only reason I got out of bed was to get my credit card, to sign up for a program that I knew would keep me focused! 

I signed up and got on with my day - I'm ok. But it kind of made me smile, that I had to get out of bed to make something happen...funny, we have to do that in life with everything, don't we. ;)

The start of a new round in the program that I follow was really good timing - I know that this will help keep me focused and on track, if I put the work in,

#14 on my list: remind myself of how far I have come

My plan is to really embrace the round.  Not be perfect - no, I can't be perfect.  But try my hardest and embrace it properly.  Apart from teaching my niece how to make sandcastles out of dirt, and some spontaneous alcoholic debauchery with some friends (hey, I haven't had a finale party for a long time!), I spent some of my weekend brainstorming.

I wrote down everything that has helped me in the past.  No matter how insignificant it seemed, I wrote it down.  And I'm going to try and do as much of my list as I can.  I need all the help I can give myself, to get me out of this slump.

All of my old favourites - star sticker chart, rewards jar, apps, watching mindset videos, all of that stuff - I wrote down over 30 things that I could do!  I'm still implementing them - I actually only had time from Monday to get myself set up - but I will keep working.  'Completing Pre-season' is on my list, and I've done I think 10 out of the 18 tasks - I will get them done.

It was the Week 1 weigh in today.  I only weighed in to get my 'start' weight on Sunday - I still haven't measured up properly or done my fitness test, I just jumped on the scales.  And I couldn't believe it, I have lost 5.3kg since Sunday.  In 2 days!  I usually have a big loss the first weigh in after being off track and unfocused.  Numbers like that aren't a regular thing, it's the whole initial water-weight / body-is-in-shock-for-actually-being-taken-care-of-weight.  But I'd usually get that result over a week, not after just 2 days of work, one of them being my rest day!  Far out.  Time to keep working hard!  Today is 20 weeks till Christmas Eve and I know where I want to be by Christmas.  Things aren't great, but I have the opportunity to make them great, and I need to work at that, now.

It's really hard to pick yourself up and pull yourself out of slumps but you somehow manage, and you do get through.  It's inside you. xx