Last night I was so frustrated with our new (to us) laptop because out of nowhere it just totally and completely froze mid-sentence in a new blog post. I did the traditional wait of a few minutes to let the computer get itself together. Nope. Just stuck in time. No ctrl-alt-del for this freeze- absolutely dead. Zero degrees Kelvin. I was frustrated at the dang computer so I had to do the hard reboot, where you hold the power button down for five seconds. That said, though it wasted some time in my life, once the computer rebooted and got everything together I was able to post my pics and the short post from last night and get on with life. I was fine and you all finally have the pictures and life simply kept going.

There is quite the analogous connection here to my life. The last two weeks haven't been great. I've been dealing with demons, yes, as per my recent post. But I have been frozen, both with the numbers on the scale and with my dedication to my goals. I find myself giving in to the temptations, and I have been reattaching the chains once bound to my feet, shackling me to sin and death. I worked out only once last week- Monday, because I had a personal training appointment. I didn't eat terribly, but I didn't track my calories and I think I was ok but I honestly just don't even know how I did. Yesterday I woke up feeling terrible (actual physical ailments), had to stay home from church for the second week in a row, and spent the day on the couch. I was in genuinely terrible shape physically, but still... Jason had to clean the kitchen, Jason has to do laundry today in the midst of a million other things, and Jason had to take care of pretty much everything. This eats at him and makes me irritable and just isn't great.

I dealt with this in a real mature way yesterday- I decided I wanted a few cat cookies (they're these crunchy ginger flavored cookies from Trader Joe's that are decently healthy and so yummy) but Jason had eaten them all the night before when he stayed up later than me because I basically picked an argument with him. This made me upset with him for eating the cookies, and to get back at him I ate the rest of the ice cream and leftover chocolate sauce (basically melted chocolate chips with heavy cream for dipping strawberries in). I really don't know why I ate it, because I didn't even really want it. It wasn't like trying to curb a craving. I know that deep down I was feeling bad about me so I was actually punishing myself. Nonetheless, just thinking about eating it made me feel so horrible that I threw up- it wasn't even binging, just general queasiness that led to me with my head over the toilet.

Last night, for whatever reason, we also decided to have Jason bring home this dessert-y chocolate chip calzone thing. I really don't know why, since we haven't done anything like that since our first 3 months of marriage when I packed on 40 pounds last year. The worst part is that after 1 bite I realized that it didn't taste very good. So what did I do?

Eat the whole thing (well, my half at least).

Probably 800 calories worth.

Granted, we ate a light dinner in anticipation. And I likely stayed under my 2,600 since getting sick from the ice cream also caused me to un-deposit my lunch. But that's still 800 empty calories of sugar and fat and I feel like crud this morning. I had to force down an oatmeal and I just feel blech.

In addition to utterly ridiculous food and (lack of) exercise choices, I'm dealing with other stuff. Last week I randomly stumbled across the opportunity to be a nanny for a family in the area where Jason and I are moving to in June. It was less hours, only 4 days a week, and almost $100 more a week than I make now- almost as much as I'd make if I were teaching. I was set to go meet the family Wednesday, and I was feeling really good about it and getting increasingly excited about the prospect. I got an e-mail late last night telling me that the family met someone this weekend and are hiring them and that I didn't need to come Wednesday. That was just a big unexpected blow. It wasn't even related to my weight- they'd never met me yet. Honestly, I think I was a little overqualified, being that I have a teaching degree. But still... it was just depressing. I felt so rejected because I was excited about that job opportunity. Add that to the issues with being lame regarding my weight loss goals and I just felt myself getting into a downward spiral.

Not to mention that with all of this I have been grouchy and snappy and argumentative with my husband. Plus, the non-working out funk has seen me mostly setting up shop in front of the TV all night. This means things around the apartment haven't been getting done. Also, I find that when I have my time in the Bible in the mornings it's really just words on a page. There's no connection to what I'm reading. I usually can't even remember what I read 5 minutes later. I mean, I can tell you I read Isaiah 61 &62 but I can't remember what they were about, save for maybe the "money verses" that I know are in chapter 61 without looking at a Bible. But even then, the words had no meaning. Interesting how my refusal to obey Christ, to allow Him any authority, suddenly makes His Word seem void and dull. This is especially tough because Jas and I had to make a tough decision to leave a Bible study we were in (long story, but suffice it to say that it is connected to the church we left, and we stayed in this group primarily because of the people in it whom we love) and this caused issues in said relationships that have been pretty tough on me (and Jason) emotionally.

So... I'm not eating well, not working out, not getting off my butt and not turning off the TV, not treating my husband well, not upholding my end the covenant I made to him in marriage, not connecting spiritually with Jesus, not handling emotional issues regarding possible loss of friendships and job rejection, not really doing anything I should be doing and doing many things I shouldn't.

The last two weeks have been like my frozen computer. I've just been stuck. I was doing so well, working out and counting calories and being dedicated to getting this area of my life under Christ's authority. Then, suddenly, for apparently no reason I just froze and couldn't seem to do a simple ctrl-alt-del to get myself going again. It took seeing how my sin affects my husband and my marriage, and ultimately my relationship with God, to just snap me out of it. I require a hard reboot. I have to be honest on this blog about it, and I have to just get it out there so the shame doesn't drive me back to food.

Community is incredible here. First, I was so encouraged by the wonderful comments many of you left last Friday. Thank you so much, and my honest desire is that my willingness to be real will exhort you, and that your willingness to tell it like it is to me will exhort me. That was incredibly encouraging to me. Also, I went to Fat Fighter Blogs (the button is that bee picture over on on the right; it will take you to the website) which is a community of people all working to lose weight and get fit. Some blogs are better than others. A great one I found, though, is this one:

ExFatGirl

She is a lot like me- late 20's, married, wants to be able to have babies, a teacher (be it my current occupation or no, that's what I am in my heart), and started at 400 pounds. Her build is similar, in that while she's 3" shorter than I am she has a lot of muscle mass. I cannot get over how frustrated I was watching The Biggest Loser, with girls who look the same as me, yet who weighed over 100 pounds less. She sounds much the same. Anyway, she's lost 135 pounds since she started almost exactly a year ago. This is incredibly encouraging to me, because I feel so bummed out and stuck at 20. I'm actually going to work on reading through her old blogs from when she started out, just to get more encouragement. Something tells me that if she can do this, I can do this.

So, bringing it all full circle, I've been paralyzed the last two weeks, stuck and not moving ahead. But I am rebooting. This matters too much. I want a clean apartment, a healthy marriage, a healthy relationship with Jesus, a healthy body, healthier emotions, and, most of all, to be able to check in at my one year mark of starting this and to find that I actually have lost a lot of weight and my life is changing. I can do this, I will do this, and today is a new day to shut everything off and start over. And just like last night wasted a few minutes of my life while the laptop was frozen and then I rebooted, these last two weeks were a bit of a waste, but they are done and I don't have to live in them.

Today I am on track so far with food, I have a training session tonight, and overall my attitude is much better. Here's to fresh starts.