What a day, what a week, what a year!!!

Some days just challenge you to the core! It's those days that you just have to back up, slow down and take one baby step at a time, live minute by minute. It is, of course, these times that I want to head right to the grocery store, stock up on a months worth of chocolate donuts and eat them all in one evening, because half way through my binge I realize that I have to eat them ALL so that there will not be any more in the house when I wake tomorrow morning and can start eating them again! The morning will be anew! Of course, as I get out of bed with a sugar induced coma, I think I'm OK ....... until the next challenge!

Well, ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This past year has been hard. Enough said on that subject. I will no longer be a victim of 2009. Dwelling on it only helps to a point. I've lived it, I've analyzed it, I've mourned it. Now it's time to bury it, ceremoniously give it to God, thank Him for challenging me, but politely inform Him I'm ready to move on to better things.

We all have addiction of some kind. My family can write a book on the subject. But they can also write a book on being strong and working through issues.

In a few days, I head home to celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ, the beginning of a new life, and the first Christmas with out the men in my life that meant so much to me, especially my dad. It is not easy, but as I stress about it I'm eating a "EAT RIGHT" TV Dinner, not chocolate donuts and remembering all the good I have in my life.

When I get back to town I will take those baby steps like, no shopping for food after work when I'm tried and weak, only Saturday shopping after a meal. No fast food stops, only home cooked food. Start exercising, slowly like 30 minutes twice a week, then keep adding. That will be my start. I will seize happy moments with friends and family, I will start a grateful journal and remember all the things I am grateful for that day. Right now I don't need to look to the end of the journey or the BIG goal, I just need to look to today and do the best for me that day. I want to start volunteering more and attend Over eaters Anonymous and work the 12 steps. These are the things I will start with in the New Year. To some it is easy, to others like myself, it is easier said then done. But, with you and the support all around me, I can and will do this! It has been a heck of a day, a heck of a week and a REALLY crappy year! Good bye 2009! Hello 2010! Let the adventure begin! ( I wonder if the are serving lunch and alcohol on my flight home? hahaha!)y

It's all in the mind, my dear Watson!

What I am doing here is living an adventure and capturing it on a blog, but first and foremost living it each and everyday. That is no different than everyone else out there in the world. We are all on an adventure. What makes us different is how our mind perceives that adventure and how we choose to take it on.

For me right now, I want to transition from a morning state of lose to an open state of joy. Food for me has always been apart of both extremes. When I'm sad and depressed I eat, when I'm excited and over joyed, I eat, when I'm bored I shop for food, and then I eat! You get the picture! In order to change this "habit", this way of life as I know it, I have to change my mind, my perception of what food means to me. Just like I'm having to change my perception of who Tom was in my life for the past 6+ years to who he is now, like what part my dad played in my life on a daily basis for 48 years, to what he plays in my life today. None of these are easy transitions, they take time and baby steps. You have to take it slowly and make small changes at first, until you look back and realize how far you have come and what huge changes you have made. To try to do it all at once, would be impossible. Tom has been gone for 9 months, dad for 3, but I am farther ahead today than I was months ago. So, I have to learn to let go of some foods, some habits, some "needs". Before January 1, when I really set out on this change, I need to set weekly goals, which I will do. Writing this blog has already proven to be helpful, encouraging, holding me accountable, and part of the process. No body may ever read this, but like a diary, it makes me accountable to me and it helps me to see where my mind is at on this journey. I don't feel like I am on this alone and that mental is worth millions! Ok, enough seriousness, I have to run to the deli for a large moca/hazelnut latte and a blue berry muffin! (Hey, it's not Jan 1, yet!) (Oh, the tricks our mind plays on us to justify the action!)

Hello Lane, but don't get too chummy!

Well, I bit the BIG one. I walked in and purchsed the FAT clothes to get through my MLB VIP meeting next week and to get through Christmas. I vow that that will be my first and last time to do that (ok, after I return some pant and replace then today! That will be my last time!). I have to admit there is a sense of confidence you feel when something final fits, but then you realize ...... it's Lane Bryant!!!!! Nothing against Lane or her followers, it just is not me and I don't want to let that sense of confidence allow me to turn away from the goals I have for myself. Of course, on the way home I decided I was too tired (or lazy) to cook dinner so I went through Wendy's drive through. Those things should be outlawed!!! If the government wants to do something effective for health care and they want to control things, they should control the food industry and outlaw everything, anything and all things that make this nation obese.

It is much harder to recover from a food addiction than an alcohol or drug addiction, not that those are not very serious and very difficult addictions to recover from, but you don't have to fill your refrigerator with your drugs and alcohol, you don't have to go into a store at least once a week to fill up on you drugs or alcohol. You have to eat, you have to go to the grocery store, and you have to eat to survive. It's just crazy! I feel like God has played a really bad joke on all of us and someday He is going to suddenly say, "OOps, my bad, food won't make you fat or unhealthy, eat away!!!! Sorry!" I just wish he would have done it this morning before I ate 2 donuts!!! Remember, I really don't start until 1-1-01!!! (Thank, God!)

Scary Start

With any journey you must first take a look at where you came from and what brought you to this place. Yes, 2009 brought with it ALOT of stress, to much really! I've looked at my past, taken stock of who I am, and also realized that I am extremely blessed! I have my family, my health, my job, my great friends all over the country, my love of giving to others, but there comes a time when wisdom takes over and you ask, is there more? My opinion is YES! Isolating yourself is not the answer, feeling sorry for yourself is not the answer, surrounding yourswelf with people who don't get you is not the answer. Life is a journey and we are constantly starting new ones and connect with new people along the way.

This Christmas is turning out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be, which makes me turn to my main comfort ..... Food! I'm not overly secure in my future with the decision I will need to make in the new coming year, which causes me to turn to my main comfort ..... Food. My main GO-TO man, my dad, is suddening not around to .... go to, which again allows me to turn to, yep you got it, ...... food!

So, I have to wrap my head around something else that will be a "comfort", and given that it won't be drinking or drugs, I have to find it somewhere else.

Just like it was very hard to wrap my brain around the idea that I will need to buy some clothes from LANE BRYANT if I'm going to make it through next Monday when BIG clients come in for a business meeting that I'm pulling together, and it get through the holidays, I have to wrap my brain around the fact that something has to change for me to be in a better place by the time I'm 50, which by the way is 19 months.

So, yes, I went through alot in 2009, but it will soon be a closed out year, done, over, behind me! Then it will be time to look forward to good thing, an exciting journey, and getting to know the me I know is in here!!!