What a surprise….

I woke up this morning to two surprises. Both surprises have everything to do with my distorted view of reality - no one with any sense would be surprised by either of these, but hey - I’m not normal, am I?

The first surprise involved my foot. Can you believe after 1 day of not running, icing and taking Naproxyn that it still swollen and hurts like hell? I know - right? It should be healed by now, right??!!

I did note that it does feel better than it did yesterday, and the thought that maybe I could try a slow run today did cross my stupid mind, but don’t worry, I pushed it out of the way. But if any of you have any suggestions about how I can learn to run without using my feet at all, that would be AWESOME.

Here was the other surprise from team Fucked In The Head. I got on the scale, and much to my shock, not running for one day and talking about resting did not cause a miraculous gain of 15 pounds overnight. I mean the way my body is, it seems like I gain weight just looking at fattening recipes on Facebook, so I was certain the body would know about me needing to take some time off and would respond by hoarding every single calorie it could!

In fact, my weight is exactly the same as it was 2 weeks ago after my doctor’s appointment. EXACTLY THE SAME. This simultaneously makes me feel completely discouraged and completely relieved. I know that I have been snacking MUCH less. And I’ve ben focused on making healthy choices. And yet the scale has not decided to reward my efforts.

On the other hand, I haven’t gained anything either. Which begs the question - if I can maintain my weight right where it is with relatively little effort - meaning keeping up the exercise I do and eating mostly healthy most of the time and not snacking during the week, but being more loose on the weekends - can I live with this? I don’t have the answer to that right now. Because I look at myself in the mirror and see much more fat than I want to have. But I’ve also shown that I clearly don’t have the desire/self-control to fix it.

I have never - never in my entire life - been in a place where I haven’t mentally obsessed about my weight. Now obviously, that doesn’t mean I did anything about it. But when I was fat, I thought about how fat I was ALL THE TIME. In public, in school, at work, while driving, at home - it was always there. And spent HOURS crafting how I would change it starting TOMORROW.

Then I started losing, my life changed and each day would bring the morning weigh in with great anticipation followed by the exhilaration of loss or the crushing disappointment of no loss or - worse - gaining. After hitting my goal weight, the obsession didn’t leave - was I thin enough? Could I go lower? Could I get more toned? Was my stomach flat?

And as weight has crept back on - like lava from a volcano creeping towards a house - slow - inevitable - destructive - I pull at the fat that overhangs my shorts when I work out. I stare at the scale with actual fear before stepping on.

So what would it be like to let it go? To know that if I stay this course, I’m pretty healthy, I have a bit more cushioning than I would like, but I can just live my life not ruled by obsessing on my weight and appearance? To be NORMAL? That thought is pretty fucking appealing, ain’t it?