If the car falls off the track

I made mention of sabatoging myself on this roller coaster of health that I am on...I derail myself and let the car just plunge into oblivion, every.single.time I get even close to a good place for me.

Year before last, I lost 45 pounds in 5 months, and kept it off for nearly 2 years. Then, last year I ran a HALF marathon, and now I am struggling with 2 miles. I actually just started the Couch to 5K program completely from scratch to get back in the groove and to improve my speed a bit. I joined the gym in August and have NEVER gone outside of personal training. NEVER. NOT ONE SINGLE TIME. NOT ONCE. This gym has a movie room, spin classes, Body Pump, Zumba, tons of cardio machines, etc. I go to personal training, walk on the treadmill while I wait for my session...the whole while weirdly hoping my trainer WON'T SHOW UP. I have my session (because he always.shows.up.) and then I leave. I do this once a week. Since I joined the gym? I have gained 20 lbs. mm. Not really the impact I thought it would have.

OH, wait, there is more: I used to have fruit and yogurt for breakfast every day. EVERY day. Now I have a spicy chicken biscuit and Diet Coke, on the days I EVEN BOTHER to eat breakfast. I do manage to eat a good lunch almost every day. Then dinner? Pizza (but "just" a slice with mushrooms and spinach), fast food salads, wings/beer, you name it, if I want it, I have it. I blame Mr. P because he is a bad influence. WHATEVS, I have been married to him during many bouts of healthiness, this is just the phase where I let him dictate our menu. If I choose, he will oblige, but it is just easier to let him lead me down the path of ever loving fried potatos with cheese and jalapenos or puff pastry filled with cheese and delicious. Our water delivery guy QUIT coming to our house because it took forever for us to drink a thing of water, let alone 3....soda was the only thing flowing in our house. We had to dig out a bill to even find his phone number when we finally ran out of water.

So, where do I go from here?

On Week 1 Day 2 of Couch to 5K, with my jogging speed around 12 minute miles (I am normally 13:30ish). I will have personal training twice a week for the next 2 weeks to get into a routine--Tuesdays and Fridays. I will pick ONE class to attend at my gym this week. I went to the store and bought breakfast stuff, yeah, some of it is prepackaged (Quaker Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies, some yummy looking veggie omelet sandwiches), some of it isn't (Fage yogurt, fruit). Until school is out, I will TRY SO HARD not to have a spicy chicken biscuit for breakfast. I will stick with my lunches as it. Dinner? Tonight we had spicy grilled chicken salads, and the nights we are home (we have commitments FOUR nights this week...end of semester crap), we will 'survive' off of salad and pasta. Our water consumption is back where it should be...I will start my day with water, but have Diet Coke during my teaching hours, then back to water.

That is the easy stuff. The hard stuff? Dealing with why I push my car off the track every time I get SO close to getting where I want to be.

Who's life is it anyway?

About a year ago, I was set to post about my weight loss, self-sabatoge circle and why I thought that was occurring. I was actually about halfway through writing that post when I got a call from my daughter that jarred me, and it has taken about a year to wrap my head around everything that has happened as a result of that call. She is FINE, not hurt, not sick, perfectly fine. What we discussed in that phone call is her story to tell, her life, not mine, so I won't go into that here. And maybe that right there is the crux of quite a bit of what has been happening with me. I am realizing at a certain point that our kids are no longer OUR kids. They are integral, important HUGE GIANT portions of our life, but guess what? Their lives are THEIRS. To try, to learn, to make mistakes and to have victories and all that goes along with figuring out who they are and who they want to be. When kids are little, and YOURS, you make their decisions and you make sure they are safe and happy and warm. But now? They have to figure out how to live their lives so that they can create their own safety and happiness and warmth. Parenting has never been tougher, the lows have never been lower, but the highs have never been higher. The pride that comes from watching your adult children make good decisions that will lead them to happiness, safety and warmth is divine.

people are interesting

Lots of stuff has been going on, so MUCH stuff that I am having a hard time figuring out where to start and how to even organize it without one, giant, comma, filled rambling sentence with lots of CAPITAL letters and words that I make up.

So I will start with this interaction I had just two hours ago.

I went to lunch and on my way back to my office I notice a guy walking towards me walking a pretend dog...or pretending like he is walking a dog... not sure the distinction is important, but I was getting hung up on how to describe it.

So for some reason I don't really even understand, I smiled at him and said, "What kind of dog is that?"

Without hesitation he said, "I am not pretending to walk a dog, I am pretending to smoke a cigarette."