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.