Christmas stuff and how much I hate clutter

Well, I don't really have much of a family and I am used to spending the holidays alone. I kind of like it actually. Until very recently I always found some friend who needed dog sitting and spent a few quite days alone while the rest of the world was going crazy. Well, this year I kind of had to go crazy with the world. I spent Christmas with my girlfriend's family. They were very nice, let me bring some of my animals along (now I have my own animals and I have discovered how impossible it is to find a dog sitter over the holidays) and made sure there was vegetarian food for me. I ate too much, mostly crap,  and spend a total of 12 hours driving in the span of 60 hours. However when I finally got home I did go to the gym (I was practically the only person there on Christmas day) and ran my scheduled 3 miles.

Now the question is what do I do with the stuff I got. I am kind of a minimalist and I hate getting stuff as presents. It is never really stuff I need but I feel guilty giving it away. For example I got a set of closet organizer bags. The set is huge because the bags are really good quality with fabric reinforcement. That is all great but I keep my closet about 60% full and through away everything else. This thing comes with a show storage thing for 18 pairs of shoes! I currently own a total of 7 pairs of shoes and of those 4 just need to get thrown away the next time I go through my closet. There are also under-the-bed bags. I hate putting stuff under my bed. If I am storing it under the bed that just means I don't really need it. Plus my cats like to sleep there. My girlfriend and I also got a set of 8 glasses. We already have way too many glasses, mainly presents for my girlfriend from her family.  I have a really hard time convincing my  girlfriend to throw away stuff. The result is that we have a ``storage" room where I am not allowed to enter (and one really cannot enter it) full of stuff we don't need. When I am surrounded by stuff I just feel stressed out all the time. I need space not stuff! So I don't know what to do because it is her family so I don't want to be rude. Any ideas?

Freezing!

The windchill is something like -30 out there. It is really, really cold. I feel so bad for the little bunnies and squirrels. I am staying home today. 

I ran my first 3M yesterday. I was kind of slow because I was scared of not finishing but it was OK. It took me about 35min. I am still very excited about my 8K run. I just hope it is not -30 that day.

Settling in for the long haul

The last few days haven't been good foodwise. Not 7000 cal horrible, maybe just 2500 cal bad but after eating fewer calories for a while that maybe enough to show a gain tomorrow. And that would be a bummer. 

I am not sure analyzing why I ate would really help. It is winter break for me (I teach) so my routine changed and with that, my very new eating habits. It is hard for me to not have a routine and that is what the holidays are all about. In the next month I will make several trips to visit relatives and also I will go to a conference. There will be some emotional bumps along the way (meeting people who bring painful memories from the past). I think the best thing for me to do is forget about a ``deadline" by which to lose the weight and just take care of myself each day. A lot of people this season have been talking about making a choice between gaining, maintaining and losing over the holidays.  I think my goal should be not to gain. My focus should be to take care of myself and eating a box of cookies because I met my ex is not taking care of myself. But actually losing weight may be more stress than I want to add to my life. I think I will keep trying to lose weight but it is important to me not to set weightloss goal right now. Chances are I will not achieve them which will just make me disappointed with myself and send me straight to the cookie jar.

The one thing I am not giving up though is my training for the 5 mile race on January 17. I am almost done with week 2. Running makes me feel better emotionally and I am unlikely to eat a jar of cookies if I know I have to run with all those cookies in my tummy later. I will also continue to write down everything I eat so I am more mindful of what I am putting in my mouth.

Yesterday I had kind of a breakthrough. I generally lack self-confidence and it is fairly common for me to put myself down. It is supposed to be kind of a joke between me and some of my friends but it is bad. I am trying to start respecting myself and maybe even loving myself regardless of my weight. So a friend of mine made a joking comment. We are going to a conference together and I booked us into a hotel that is too far from the conference center. So she jokingly said how next year she will find a different roommate. Well, in the past I would have said something about doing better next year (I tend to be clingy with with friend and do anything to please her and we both know it). So this time I said something about how that would mean she would be missing on an opportunity to room with me. I think we were both kind of surprised I said that. I don't really believe that spending time with me is an ``opportunity". I most of the time believe I should be the one grateful that the other person chose to spend time with me. Anyway, she said ``Wow, you are very self-confident today". She is a nice person and I think she actually liked that I didn't do my usual ``Oh, please would you share with me. I will do anything to spend time with you" and I felt better. Maybe I can train myself to believe people might actually want to spend time with me. 

I have my first 3M training run today. I am excited and scared. I think I will lower the speed a bit to be sure I can finish it. At this point it is all about completing my runs. Maybe next semester I can think about actually getting faster and closer to my times from a year ago.