Tweaking Things A Bit

I’m scrapping the idea of the “Mean Abs Challenge”.  I think I need to gently work myself into full sit ups and pushups.  Slow and steady wins the race..lol.  And so, I’m making my own challenge.  In addition to tacking on 10 more squats each day for the rest of the Squat Challenge, I’m going to start today with 50 crunches, using the Squat Challenge as my guide.  So by the end of the 30 days of crunches, I want to be up to 250.  Too lofty of a goal?  Not sure.  If it gets to be too much, I’ll ease back.  The last thing I want to do is get discouraged.  That’s happened to me too many times before.

And, in the interest of full disclosure, I have struggled with eating disorders in the past.  When I was in high school, going through the bullying of my classmates, I completely stopped eating in front of people.  In my mind, I was 600 pounds, and every time I took a bite, it was just proving to my tormentrs that I was a fat cow who had no will power.  I’d starve myself, and then when I did put food in my mouth, I’d just purge it up later.  Sorry for the brutal truth, but there it is.

I snapped out of that when I started passing out on a regular basis.  Denying to myself and others that I had a problem the whole time, but realizing that I needed to stop.  That worked until my ex and I broke up three months after the birth of my son.  I was despondent, living with my mother in her one room apartment with my two kids (3 years old and 3 months old at the time..GAH!).  I’d always make sure the kids were fed properly, but would just eat the food they didn’t finish.  I rapidly lost the weight I’d gained while pregnant and then some.  I was down to an unhealthy (for me) 110 pounds. 

Clearly I snapped out of that too because after meeting my now fiancé and moving in together, I ballooned up to 170…spiraled down to 150 and then back up to where I am now.  I need to stop putting food in my mouth just because I’m bored, or because I had a stressful day at work.  And believe me, every day at work is stressful.  I work in a large collections department for a corporate company and while the weight doesn’t help, my blood pressure is high and I’m on medicine for it.  My doctor wants me to lose weight, but also said, “Maybe it’s time to find another job…”.  Sigh.  Indeed.