Today I am powered by baby carrots and hummus.  That is all.

Summer is Over

I started back at school yesterday.  I'm a teacher and I'm now in workshop week.  A week from Monday will be my first day back with students.  Summer is over and I have mixed feelings.  I of course feel like my summer break was too short, but I'm looking forward to developing a solid routine again.

I envision myself exercising right away after work.  I imagine that it will be easier not to snack when I'm not at home.  I imagine developing a better work-life balance than I had last year.  I want to do two things this school year.  1.  Kick ass at my job, and 2.  Lose a ton of weight.

I've got a really loud voice in my head though.  It's the voice that tells me to go get seconds even though I am full because that food was really good.  It's the voice that tells me going to the movies won't be as fun without candy and popcorn.  It's also the voice that tells me I'm never going to be able to lose the weight I need to lose in order to get healthy, so I shouldn't even bother trying.

Right now the voice in my head is saying, Yeah, you lost a lot of weight a few years ago, but you've gained it all back.  You've forgotten how to lose weight and you're never going to remember how again.  You're going to die early, you might as well enjoy this candy bar.  You're going to be too stressed once work starts to eat right and too tired to exercise.  You were going to focus on your weight this summer but you didn't.  You gained a TON of weight last year.  The same thing is going to happen this year.

Full disclosure: Sometimes I let this voice write my blog for me.  He's an asshole.

So here I am.  About to start a new school year.  I want to change everything, but the voice has been too loud.  I don't want to repeat last year, I've got one thing to say to that voice in my head:

You're not welcome here.  Fuck off.

How do I fix this?

I've been struggling a lot lately.  I've managed to gain back almost all the weight I lost when I started this blog.  I exercise a couple days a week, but not enough to make any progress.  My eating habits are abysmal.  

I feel trapped.  I feel stuck in some cycle from which I can't escape.  I know I lost a bunch of weight a long time ago, but I feel like I don't own that victory anymore.  That wasn't me, that was someone else who was able to focus on exercising and eating right.

Being a teacher, I thought I'd be able to dedicate my summer toward losing a bunch of weight.  That didn't happen.  I'm not any more motivated to exercise, I'm just more caught up on my Netflix watching.  I can't even get myself off the couch.

I weigh 292 pounds and can't help but think if I don't get my weight under control, I'm going to die early.  I'm going to have an uncomfortable and abbreviated existence.  That keeps me up at night.

So what do I do?  Every time I try to psych myself up to get on the right track, I fall off.  I give up.  I don't commit.  Something needs to change.  I need to fix this.  

Now.