"DIET RAGE"

I’m on a lot of e-mailing lists. I get countless newsletters from who knows where. Most of them I don’t even read. Some of them I vaguely remember signing up for but don’t remember why, and most of the ones I get, I probably did sign up for once-upon-a-time. A lot of them are health-related. Some of them are webmaster-related. Some of them are spam. Once in a while I decide to unsubscribe from a few, but more just seem to creep up from the woodwork. Anyway, one of them actually managed to catch my eye yesterday. The subject of the email was “Do you suffer from diet rage?” I immediately answered “Yep!” in my head. A decade and a half of yo-yo dieting has created what I would call “diet rage”, and I’m beyond frustrated with it. I don’t know how many pounds I have lost and then regained in the past 15 or so years. A lot of that is because I’m an emotional eater and that problem never seems to get solved in any “diets”. I was slim before I got married. But losing a baby in 1989, 3 weeks before I got married is basically where the trouble started, and a cycle began of emotional eating and subsequently the trial and error of many, many different diets and weight loss methods. You name it and I have probably tried it at one time or another. But gradually over time, the older I got, and the more research I did on nutrition and health, the more healthy my attempts became, thankfully.

My cold that I’ve had for over a week now, and the congestion that won’t seem to go away is a stark reminder that I believe I could be healthier if I put my mind to it. I think I take pretty good care of myself, but I know in my heart of hearts that I’m not doing everything that I can. I know I’m not practicing everything that I know about health and nutrition, and what I believe is the best food to put into my body. So, the positive side of being sick is that it’s given me a bit of a kick-in-the-butt, and re-motivated me to be better to myself and believe that I’m worth it. Running has also helped me to feel better about myself, physically and mentally. I think I’m on my way but not where I want to be… YET. :)

Snow... and summer memories...

Thursday evening we had our first snowfall of the season. It wasn't a lot, but it took me by surprise when I went outside and saw snow mixed with rain coming down. My daughter was excited, and promptly went back inside to find mittens and everything. :) None of it stayed on the ground, but in the morning there was snow stuck to the top of the car. Many people are grumpy over the fact that winter is coming, but I actually like winter, and the snow that comes with it. It's pretty, it makes the trees look beautiful, and there's lots of fun things you can do in it, like snowball fights, tobboganing, making snowmen (or snowpeople, whatever, don't email me for politically incorrectness please, LOL), and down-hill skiing. Not to mention catching snowflakes on your tongue and snow angels!! Plus, when it snows, it's not as cold outside, because it has to be somewhere around zero (give or take a few degrees) to snow. Anyway, it was obviously a stark reminder that summer is a distant memory. Here's a photo of Marissa during one of our many picnics that we went on over the summer. She's chasing bubbles that were coming out of a bubble machine. I love this picture.

My cold is hanging on for dear life. I'm still congested and very exhausted. Along with that comes increasing frustration that I'm not feeling better yet. I did go for a run tonight, and though I couldn't do week 3 of C25K (couch to 5K) because I couldn't run the 3 minute segments, I did most of week 2, but I think I did 4 repetitions instead of 6. I'm okay with that, considering how I'm feeling. I'm glad to have done the majority of it. I think I'm going to go to the Running Room downtown on Wednesday night and join in on their free running club, and run with some other humans. ;) I think that might be fun.