Start: 277
Current: 272

Loss: 5 pounds

(No change)

The revelations keep happening this week, and I only wish my weight could reflect that. I feel like things are being lifted from me as I discover, and that is a beautiful feeling.

Okay, I’ll back up.

Having realised last week just how much fear rules my life, I have begun to notice and nullify my anxiety. I recognise the fear, assess it and often am able to get rid of it just like that. Beautiful, eh?

However, as anxiety goes, people who are used to high levels of stress will often find ways to stress themselves if the environment does not present stressful situations. But the more I acknowledge and assess, the more general the fears get because all the specific situations are being taken care of.

The night before last I found myself having a hard time getting to sleep and I suddenly felt an incredible fear about the next day. Seriously, it was so general that it was, “Oh God, tomorrow is an entirely new day I have to face.”

While I’m sure that is a legitimate fear for other people, I laughed. My mind was so utterly desperate for something to be scared about that it noted I was about to go to sleep and thus the sun would come up tomorrow.

The horror.

I am laughing about it now, but that’s only because I see what my mind is doing. My brain, my psyche, my soul doesn’t know how to exist without stress and fear. To be without them is to be letting my guard down and opening myself to threat. But that’s just not true and I don’t want to live my life like that. I want to be able to have that one day – even if it’s only one day – without fear.

The unfortunate side with all this awareness and assessment is that the things my subconscious is throwing at me are not always as funny as being afraid of facing a new day. I repeatedly almost had meltdowns at the shops yesterday because I was buying myself things (I still have a hard time spending money on myself, but I’m getting past that) and I was feeling tempted by sweets. But those meltdowns were being caused by feelings that were so old that I thought I had dealt with.

Lo and behold, my subconscious is willing to throw anything at me to get me back to where I was.

But I am not bloody going back. I won’t do it. I am here. I am being healthy, I am getting healthy. In mind, body and spirit.

Let’s just hope that my subconscious doesn’t have any really big rocks to throw at me.

Start: 277
Current: 272

Loss: 5 pounds

(No change)

No change, and I’m okay with that.

I went to see my naturopath this weekend, and I’m thinking that I should ditch my psychologist and just start booking double-appointments with her. I swear we only meet to chat and check in… Haha. This is okay because it is bulk-billed. I’m so happy for that because I really enjoy talking with her.

Even if she thinks I’m a challenge.

Yep. At our appointment, she – very gently – said I was a challenge and things would be difficult. Yet, rather than wilting under such a proclaimation, I found it refreshing. It’s not easy to hear, but I felt like she was not only willing to help me but cared enough to be brutally honest with me.

We talked about my anxiety issues and did a simple drawing demonstration that really let me see that I live with fear – often severe – every day. She talked about how that’s not normal and that people are meant to be able to have entire days pass by without being fearful.

An entire day? No fear? Now that is an interesting concept.

So what we’re doing from here on out is taking everything very gently – as much as it irks my impatience. But the key, for me, is to feel safe in all I do or I won’t last in the long term. I need to feel safe with exercise, which means things I enjoy and things that are gentle enough to not cause injury. I need to feel safe in eating, which – at this point – means having dark chocolate on hand.

I feel a bit pathetic saying chocolate makes me feel safe, but I need to accept the adult my childhood has molded and try to work with it.

So I have a lot to think about this week and plenty to work on. I have a bit of a cold going on right now anyway, so I have plenty of thinking time.

How is everyone else doing?

Start: 277
Current: 272

Loss: 5 pounds

(No change)

After taking off a few days to celebrate my birthday without having to obsess about what was going in my mouth, I’m feeling a bit blah and headachey. I can’t help but wonder if this is what I felt like all the time and just didn’t realise it because it was my ‘normal’. Either way, I am in even more awe at the naturopath eating plan, which I am happily back on.

Having seen that I can lose a little bit every day just by taking on her diet selection suggestions, I have now decided to get back into exercising. The weather hasn’t been ideal for it, but I don’t want to wait for weather and the puppy is beyond excited to get a walk bright and early in the morning.

My husband now works three kilometres away from where we live, so I decided to go in to work with him and then to walk back home with the puppy. I was a little nervous, as the last time I started in on a walking routine my ankle played up big time, but today went well. I only got sore because I pushed myself too much on a hill at the beginning of the walk.

Puppy is happy, I am happy and husband is happy. The weird thing is that I’ve started these things so many times in the past that it wasn’t a big deal this time. I just started. No fuss, no big woo hoo – just walking.

I’m quite chuffed.

Start: 277
Current: 272

Loss: 5 pounds

Yay! Some loss!

Despite my best intentions, this place has become rather quiet. I hate that, too. I never want to give this place up; it’s a sanctuary of sorts. But when I get busy…

My time has been largely occupied with book-related things. Once Echo Falls was released and announced, I dug into revisions for my ebook for authors. I’m crossing fingers that I can get that finished tonight.

I need to retrain my focus back on my health, however. I can feel things slipping. Old habits, old emotions and old sabotaging behaviours have come into play. However, I am not meeting these things with dread and a sense of premature defeat. This time, I accept them as part of my defense mechanism.

I bought myself a nifty little journal that is specifically for food, exercise, water and etc tracking. Fight fire with fire, as they say. As much as I’ve always hated food tracking, it does keep up my levels of self-awareness.

Working with ‘my team’ has brought me a new appreciation of the person I know I can be. I know I’m a far way off, but the thing is, I’m further away with my mental health than my physical health. Just knowing that there is something I’m going to have to work longer to achieve makes it easier to accept the length of time it will take for me to get physically healthy.

While this is no bombshell to change the health world, it’s one more sliver placed correctly in this strange mosaic I’m coming to see as the woman I will be.