Day #8 & #9: Reflections on Failure

I have had a bad few days. It turns out (who knew!?) that having an ungodly amount of leftover french bread, chocolate cake, spinach pizza, and rotini in your house doesn't exactly lead to diligence and devotion in the calorie counting department. Furthermore, it seems that my whole "this week is a really stressful week" situation at work might just be more like a "this is a real stressful thirty years" situation at work. Add in another million excuses here, like how I have to spend all of my baby-free, non-work time either doing chores or sleeping, and you have the result that I see in the mirror every day. I wish someone would invent Hermione's time turner from Harry Potter (I know; my geek is showing) because I would make very very good use of it.

Luckily, the leftovers are almost gone and I think tomorrow I'll be able to regain my footing. The good news about my eating in the last two days has been that despite the fact that I've eaten a lot, none of it has been purchased. That means that while I'm not counting, I'm also not taking advantage of the fact that I'm not counting to act like a total idiot. This is something I definitely would've done a while ago, so that's a baby step forward.

Otherwise, I just need to get on it. There's no secret. There's no time turner. There are no magic tricks. There is only reality, and I can either stop whining about it and get on it, or keep whining and buy bigger pants and never finish my novel. I don't think that's gonna make me happy, so I'll go with the first option.

Before I go to bed for my luxurious six hours of sleep, I want to touch briefly on something that I think many of us do that is no good whatsoever and leads to all of our failures--we enable and we allow other people to be our scapegoat. First, let's talk about enabling. This is something that I've witnessed a lot of in my life, but here I want to talk specifically about food. Alright, fellow fatties, let's all admit it. We enable and derail each other. We know that our eating habits suck, but for some reason, it feels less abysmal if we aren't disgusting alone. If we drag our friend to Steak n Shake, it doesn't feel as unnecessary as you know that it is. If we aren't the only person who's fat, then it becomes more okay to be fat. We may not do it consciously, and we certainly don't do it maliciously, but we also aren't doing each other any favors.

My example? Today I was at Target shopping for household groceries and I saw the display of Archway cookies for the holidays. As a kid, my mom always got the bells and stars Archway sugar cookies around the holidays as a special treat. There weren't many sugary items in my house growing up, but this was an exception. For a while, they stopped producing (or at least distributing locally) this variety of cookie, and it was kind of sad to see my family tradition go, but in the past couple of years, they've been back on holiday shelves. So 10:45pm finds me grabbing two bags and putting in my cart. For me? Oh no. I'm planning to buy them, drive to my mom's house, and deliver them to her as a gift. This is kind of adorable and certainly motivated by love, but at the end of the day it's super screwed up because my mom is doing the South Beach diet and trying to limit her carb intake. Is it loving of me to show up on her door with cookies that more or less just insult and disregard her difficult and important decision to take care of herself? No. In the end, there are other things to be nostalgic about. I don't need to enable her to show her that I care, so I put the cookies back (sorry, mom). I hope that someone would do the same for me.

Next, let's talk about scapegoating because I really think they're related. When you're unhealthy, you will look for any excuse to continue being unhealthy. It's easy for skinny people to exalt the joys of exercise and clean eating, but when it's something you aren't used to, it's no bueno. I've been on both sides. When I was running every other day, the thought of doing anything else sounded awful, but now I'll look for any excuse to stay on this couch. An object tends to stay on the same course unless acted on by an outside force, whether that course is destructive or productive.

Now, when you're looking for excuses to abandon self-improvement, other people tend to be the easiest scapegoats for that blame. Take, for example, today. My friend and coworker was supposed to go to the cardio room at work with me. She came in and said that she wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be going. Did I go? Of course not. I stayed at my desk and worked for an extra 45 minutes and then drove home. Deep down, I was thankful for her backing out. It gave me license and an excuse to do the same. What's ludicrous about this is that it assumes that she will share the same responsibility for the inevitable results of my choices. She won't. I can blame my friend for my failure to exercise all I want, but in twenty years will I be able to force my diabetes on to her? Will she have to absorb 50% of my fat stores? I think not. The same goes for if I'd been a jerk and showed up at my mom's door with those cookies. If she had eaten them, she could've easily pointed the finger at me and scapegoated me for her failure, but in the end she's the only one who really suffers the consequences, and it's on her to think of herself rather than allowing someone else to pull her off track. No one else really has that power unless you willingly hand it to them. I know that I do that far too frequently when I secretly don't want to behave in a healthier way. It's something I need to commit to stop doing.