I haven’t talked a lot about starting the chain reaction of awesome in my life, lately. While I was thinking about that this morning I noticed: I have a lot of “selp-improvement” type categories listed here. I think that observation says a lot right there, don’t you think? Like, maybe there’s a part of me hoping if I give it a category on my blog it will stick? Anyway…chain reaction of awesome…I’ve not been doing much to nurture that journey lately. Not just here on this blog, but here in my actual life was well.

When you’re trying to grow as a person in any way, whether it’s starting meditation, or exercise, or just eating better – it’s very easy to get distracted. It’s very easy to avoid the actions that further these goals when you have – what feels like – more pressing and real needs surrounding you. The dishes in the sink, the laundry in the dryer, the poopy diaper on the kid in the next room. All of these immediate needs tend to trump any tasks associated with long-term goals. So, my long-term goals? Get washed down the drain with the dirty dishwater.

Add to the daily mundane BIG activities like; putting your house on the market, high school musicals, estates in probate, or sick family – and those long-term goals or dreams? Really start gathering dust. Studying for the GMAT so I can get my MBA? Impossible when trying to get my house POD Ready (FYI: PODs are just portable container units, like renting storage that gets dropped off and then picked up and moved.) so we can get it on the market by the end of May. Getting back my running body? On the back burner while we wrap up dad’s estates proceedings in Knoxville. Meditating? Improving Nutrition? Parenting adjustments? Can’t think about those while I’m sealing the grout in my kitchen.

Do you see what I have here? A lot of really valid and truthful excuses to put off all of the things I want to be doing. The thing is? If you really examine some of those entries from the ninety million Self Improvement categories I have on this blog? You’ll see that the long list of really valid and truthful excuses? NEVER ENDS.

There are always going to be little things that get in the way day to day: Cat puke to clean up, plants to be watered, cars to be vacuumed. There are always going to be big things that get in the way week to week: illness, home improvement, community needs. If my six years of blogging about making myself better has taught me anything? Is that there will never be time. Time to do what it is I want to do that seems frivolous compared to the immediate needs in my life and in the life of my family members.

So…yet again…I find myself at a crossroads. A moment in my life where maybe some clarity will produce some change. Maybe the realization that I could actually put things off forever at the rate I’m going – is just depressing enough for me to stop putting things off at all. That maybe I pull in chaos in my life to help me avoid these great improvements I need/want to make – so that I don’t have to face failure head on. Maybe I encourage the perpetual list of chores as a way to keep me from actually accomplishing any of my personal goals, so that I’ll never have to officially fail at them. And while this clarity can be very depressing, it’s also nice to know that these changes can be in my power. I don’t have to wait on the universe to give me the perfect conditions to finally encourage me to eat better, harness my creativity, meet my professional goals. Instead, I can say I’ll deal with what the universe needs me to do…AFTER I meditate, or exercise, or eat this bowl of fresh fruit. I can prioritize my personal needs before the needs of my family and of the universe.

Now, I’m not necessarily going to leave my kid sitting in his dirty diaper while I go run – but I can put off folding clothes until after I meditate. I can take the time to plan my daily menu and put off paying the bills until after grocery shopping. Because – and here’s the kicker – I’ve proven over a lifetime of getting things done, THEY WILL GET DONE. The dishes will get in the dishwasher, the laundry will get folded, the holes will get caulked and the lawn will get mowed. If all of the procrastinating of my own wants and needs has taught me anything, it’s this: Everyone Else’s Needs Will Be Met. Just maybe not on the same timeline that ignores my own personal needs.

So, for the nineteen millionth time, I’m refocusing. I am going to spend the week shifting my priorities and digging into all of those entries about who and what I want to be. I don’t want to keep writing about starting these journeys to self-improvement under different categories with different focuses. I want to recognize that: THERE WILL NEVER BE TIME UNLESS I MAKE IT. And I’m going to start making time.

Right after I hang those pictures on the wall and clean my toilet.

(P.S. I categorized this entry in all of my self-improvement categories to prove my point with the excessive categorizing of my self-improvement. Except for one: Operation Marathon. Because let’s be honest, I did that once. And while some may discover their love of real long-distance running with their first marathon? I WAS NOT ONE OF THEM.)

While I’ll never been so overweight that my health is at risk, I’ve been constantly trying to lose that last [insert random number between 10 and 40 here] pounds for the last five years. I actually had lost 20lbs right before Christmas and then immediately gained back 10 of it. So I’ve been trying to re-lose that 10lbs ever since. Re-losing weight you’ve already lost recently is emotionally taxing because you spend a lot of time kicking yourself in the head for gaining it to begin with. It’s also unhealthy. There are studies out there that say losing and gaining the same 10lbs over and over again is worse for your body than just keeping it on to begin with. I’d link to the study but it’s cold in my house right now and I’m just trying to whip this entry out before my fingers freeze off.

Yesterday was a Bad Day. If you’ve ever tried to lose weight or change your lifestyle at all – you know the Bad Day. It’s the day where, somewhere a long the way, your eating program goes out the window and you find yourself giving up on the entire day ending in a fit of binging that sometimes sees you falling asleep at 10pm with your face in a bowl of Cheese Puffs. My Bad Days are not always about junk food, mainly because we rarely keep junk food in the house. Sometimes I’ll make a Bad Day worse by hitting a fast food joint, but most of my Bad Days just involve me eating too much good stuff. I like a lot of healthy foods – like yogurt and granola. So, a Bad Day might see me binging on that throughout the day. That fact is probably the only thing keeping me ballooning to a greater size – that when I binge it is usually on healthy food. However, calories are calories so when you eat double what you should – whether it’s in yogurt or french fries – you’re going to gain back weight you’ve lost. Which is where I am right now. Where I was yesterday.

I sat in bed last night thinking about my relationship with food. It is such an emotional relationship. A Bad Day for me never involves just food. It’s always bad for emotional reasons as well. Some days I can easily say: I binged because I was stressed. Or: I binged because I missed my Dad. Or: I binged because I yelled at my kids unnecessarily and I felt really guilty about that. Many days food is my therapy. It helps ease my anxiety or depression. It’s my friend to call when I’m stressed or angry.

But it also goes the other way. My food started out bad yesterday when I allowed myself an unhealthy splurge for breakfast: An Egg McMuffin. I used to eat those all the time and I just allowed myself to have one yesterday. I thought, the calorie count isn’t too much more than what I usually eat for breakfast, I can get away with it. Except that something inside of me recognized the inherent badness of the food and you know what? My emotional well-being paid the price. I feel like my depression and anxiety shifted after eating that and the day just got worse. In other words – the bad food? Put me in a bad mood. I’ve often seen this as a predictable relationship in my life: If I eat shitty? I feel shitty. And then, I feel shitty – so I eat more shittily. (Dude. I totally just made up a word.) It’s an unhealthy cycle involving my emotions and food.

I guess I’ve always know this – that food and my emotions are connected. I just don’t think I realized how clearly they’re connected until yesterday when I honestly watched my productivity decline and my stress and anxiety level rise as the grease from the breakfast sandwich permeated my bloodstream. And since it was breakfast? The day went downhill from there. By the time I went to bed last night I had cried more in that day than I had in the weeks prior. And I had also eaten about 3500 calories of granola, yogurt, and also some pizza. (Because, let’s face it, if you’ve trashed your diet by dinner time? Why waste the energy cooking something healthy?)

It’s a weird thing to recognize something concretely that I’ve been vaguely hinting at for years. I’ve always known I had an unhealthy relationship with food, turning to it when I’m not feeling 100%. But I don’t think I ever realized how clearly it works the other way as well: That splurging on something bad for me can also so distinctly shift my mood in the bad direction. Starting the horrible cycle of eating and crying that inevitably defines my Bad Day.

I’m hoping this really clear evidence will help me reshape my relationship with food. Really look at it as fuel for my emotions and trying to make decisions with a better understanding of how it really can affect my mental state. I mean, the Sausage McGriddle tastes amazing (Why must McDonald’s have such an enticing breakfast menu?) – but what’s it going to do to my emotions? Is it worth the tears it may cause later? Is it worth the lack of patience I’ll show with my children? Is it worth the sacrifice my family will have to make as I cry all night? NO. I can honestly tell you that no food, no matter how delicious, is worth all of that. My family deserves better from me…but more importantly? I deserve better. I deserve to feel good, and if that greasy breakfast sandwich is going to make me feel like crap? Then why do I eat it? Hopefully – I won’t. I’m really going to try to examine how foods make me feel. And maybe even try to examine how my feelings affect my cravings. I know I head straight to the pantry when I get stressed…maybe if I recognize that it will be easier to battle it?

(Please don’t tell me to go for a run instead. My husband tells me that and it makes me want to punch him in the face. It’s probably the best advice anyone could give someone who eats when they’re stressed/depressed; but it doesn’t mean we actually enjoy hearing it.)

I’m curious if any of you have had any of these realizations with your relationship with food. Have you noticed any relationships between your mood and how you eat? Does one affect the other? We all know that certain foods help or hinder our energy level – but what about our depression or anxiety? Have you noticed certain foods having a positive or negative effect on those emotional states?

So: Today? I’m going to focus more on eating for my mind. For my heart. Not the organ beating in my chest, but the heart of my emotions. I want to eat in a way that helps me smile, that doesn’t block my inspirations, and that allows me to be productive in the ways I want to be productive. Maybe this is the first step in me breaking up with unhealthy eating habits. I’ve realized the relationship is bad for me, now I just have to take the key back and burn all the love letters. That’s the hard part. Too bad I don’t have my old Milli Vanilli tape. A little bit of Blame It On The Rain might help with the healing.

I thought I’d give you an update on my half-marathon training for my Team in Training event in March. I’ve got a few more giveaways to do but I’m SO behind on mailing out thank you cards to those of you who have already donated, that I don’t want to solicit anymore donations until I’m caught up. My hand cramps up after about 5 cards because when training for a marathon? THE HANDS ARE NOT STRENGTHENED. Just an FYI, you know.

I started Jillian’s 30-day shred this week as an attempt to add some cross-training type fitness to my running schedule. Everyone tells you this is important but let me tell YOU something: I skip my runs some days. Actually, I skip my runs many days. So, if I don’t even make it to my training run for my half-marathon, you can rest assured I won’t do my cross-training. I’m just trying to be honest. But, the 30-day shred video? (Which is on my OnDemand box for FREE right now) only takes about 28 minutes. Start to Finish. I promise you, if I don’t have to leave the house? I can find 28 minutes to work out. The tough part of doing my runs is getting out of the house. Do I wait until MrZ is home so I can run without worrying about the kids? Do I try to schedule a time when the daycare at the Y is open? (Which means the chances are much greater the treadmills are full.) Do I go before or after I pick up LilZ from rehearsal? All these factors have me often just skipping the runs. WHICH IS NOT GOOD. Lucky for me, I run slow and have a pretty resilient body so this has not actually set me back too much. I do, however, want to do better. So, I added in Jillian. I’m on day three now and so far? Pretty Good. I really like it and it’s easy to just do when the time is right. I even still ran my five miles last night! Even when I was in Jillian pain! Woo Hoo!

I’m still up 7lbs from the holiday gluttony. I actually put on 9 all together, which is so embarrassing when it took me 8 months to lose 20. But, I’m back on track this week and I’m ready to get those 7lbs back off and maybe even a few more before the race in March. All in all? Not a bad place to be. Not the best place, but I’m running five miles without stopping, I’m doing my 30-day shred workouts, and I’m not eating cake for breakfast. For me? This is awesome.

All of us who have had babies have discussed Baby Weight at least once after having our babies. And probably, we thought about it more than once. Some women are lucky and they gain little and it comes off easy. (And those women are BEYATCHES, right?) Then there are people like me:

1) I gained 68lbs with LilZ – took several years to lose it all.
2) I gained 60lbs with NikkiZ – still hadn’t lost the last bit 2 years later when I got pregnant with AndyZ.
3) I gained 50lbs with AndyZ. As of today, I weight 2 pounds less than I did the day I came home from the hospital. Meaning I have lost 2lbs in 9 months.

Considering I hadn’t finished losing the weight pre-AndyZ in the first place, I choose to use my pre-NikkiZ weight as my target. So, I am currently 43lbs away from that goal. I have been struggling to lose the weight quietly, away from my blog. I’ve gained and lost the same 10lbs over the last few months. Obviously? My quiet way isn’t working. It’s time for some accountability.

Now, I know my weight battle is not as extreme as some. My need to drop 43lbs would make some people want to punch me in the face. But, I just know that there was a time when I was lighter and healthier. It’s not just about the weight – it’s about the general lifestyle I’m living now. The frenzied eat fast and crash early lifestyle that makes me feel really disappointed in my body. It is not just the extra pounds, its that I no longer feel that pride in myself that I felt at healthier points in my life. I mean – there’s a huge difference in these two bodies physically and mentally.

I just felt good the day of that race. It wasn’t just about weight because I was a few pounds shy of my goal on that day. It was about respecting my body. Taking care of it with diet AND excercise. That other body? That body gets abused. It doesn’t get enough sleep, it drinks lots of caffeine, it eats lots of junk to cope with stress and it never ever gets any excercise. EVER.

(Sidenote: While looking through all of my race photos I found this one taken about 2.5 years ago. Look! I’m totally taller than LilZ!)

Anyway…I want that other body back. I want to feel like I’m taking care of myself because you know what? I deserve to take care of myself. I deserve that pride. I work too hard at my job and for my family to put myself last on my priority list. This is about weight – for sure – but also so much more than that. This is about finally saying, “I want to treat myself at least as good as I treat everyone else, maybe even better.” Why does everyone, even the cashiers at the grocery store, get more respect from me than I do from myself? That’s completely ridiculous.

So, I’m taking the initiative today. Today? I start to put myself on the priority list. I’ll vow to start finding time to excercise because someone else can do the laundry. I’ll make a point to buy healthy foods that I like, even if no one else in the house does. I’ll take time to reflect, maybe even start meditating, because right now I cope with anxiety by eating and that’s just not working for me. I’ll demand that my family allow me to do all of these things because you know what? It will benefit them in the long run. They can attest that Anxiety Zoot? Not that fun to live with. Add Unhappy With Her Body Zoot and Super Tired Zoot in the mix and you’ll find my family is looking into a vacation home. Fr away from me.

This will be largely about losing the weight. But it will also be about finding a way to take as good of care of myself as I do my family. Finding a way to put Me Time in the schedule, even if it means that I have to ask someone else to do the laundry for a change. Or vacuum. Or grocery shop.

My basic concrete goals are this:

1) Lose those 43lbs.
2) Run a half-marathon this fall/winter.

I’ll have several other mini-goals along the way, but those are my two biggies. I found out the hard way that training for a marathon with small children and a full-time job is close to impossible. At least in my life. I mean, I did it, but not well. Not the right way. So, I’m sticking with the half-marathon which is a much more attainable goal.

I have several more vague goals I’d like to strive for along the way. I want to shake up the diet and learn to eat and cook healthy foods that I haven’t already cooked 9-million times. I want to find some sort of relaxation/meditation regiment that will possibly allow me binge-eating to cope with anxiety. I want to not wear a t-shirt and shorts over my bathing suit when we go to the beach this summer. I want to be able to wear my wedding band again without getting it re-sized.

I’ll be documenting my journey at the Balanced Living website. My page is here and will hopefully show my introductory article soon. If you want to join me, I’d love to have you. There’s a great community over there full of inspirational stories and support. They’re even holding a contest through the end of the month where they’ll give the winner $5,000 to achieve their healthy living goal. $5,000 would pay for my gym membership AND periodic days at the spa! I’d love to have you over there.

For now? It’s all about the baby steps. Like joining the YMCA. I’m going to do that this week and maybe excercise for the first time in months. Be prepared for the Holy Shit, My Body Hurts entry that will follow. I’m sure it will be a good one.

Guess what I just did? I just walked my 2+ mile route with BOTH kids (one in a stroller and one on my chest) for the SECOND TIME THIS WEEK. I didn’t want to brag about the first time because I feared that may have just been a fluke and that I’d never get the courage to do it again. BUT I DID. Baby steps to my September 5K…just taking baby steps.