[Light On, David Cook]

Yeah, I still can't stop listening to the DC song.  I just love it.  I started to try and force myself to think of a different song to quote, but it really doesn't make sense to manufacture a title... I always try to go au naturale, a song that is either already in my head or occurs to me when I think of what I want to write about.

Anyway.

No big news here.  I'm going to try and take the Brodster for a walk when he wakes up from his nap, though I'm gonna have to stick closer to home because it's looking nasty like it wants to rain.  Maybe I'll just keep doing laps around the same block... boring, but better than getting poured on.  Plus, I'd feel really bad if he got all wet.

I have been thinking about something (warning: total subject change)... sometimes I watch those shows on TLC about people who are like 500 or 600 pounds, and I remember one woman crying and saying that the stereotypes about people that big being lazy just aren't true.  Now, I can't speak for all fat people here, but as I take an objective look at my own life I have to admit that overall I am pretty lazy.  I mean, I cook and try to stay up on the cleaning, though our apartment seems to always have some clutter.  But the times I most look forward to in a day are meals, watching TV, and sleep.  And by "look forward to" I mean that those are what my day revolves around and other stuff- cleaning, showering, exercise, random tasks like paying bills or scheduling appts, etc- gets shoved in here and there, in bit parts, but if I am not being disciplined then I avoid a lot of those responsibilities.

Another blogger seeking to lose weight blogged recently her observation in her own life that when the eating and exercise slip up so do all other aspects of her life.  Suddenly laundry piles up, floors are unswept, and bills go unpaid.  I can attest to the truth of this in my life- usually I stop exercising first.  Then my eating slowly gravitates to more and more food and less and less nutritious whole foods at that.  Then go daily responsibilities like cleaning, even blogging, and I push more work / duties onto Jason.

Typically I work 3 days (Tues-Thurs) and get 4 days off (Fri-Mon).  Often they need me a bit extra, but that's my general schedule.  So two weekends ago, in my four day weekend, here's pretty much what I did.  I confess beforehand that this is incredibly humbling to be honest about, but it's the truth and hiding it doesn't do much for me, so hopefully honesty with spur me on to change and possibly some of you with similar struggles:

Thursday after work - watch TV until 11pm-ish, then mess around on the internet until 1am-ish
Friday- wake up when I feel like it (10 am-ish), go straight to the TV and start watching the endless hours of HGTV I had recorded (by endless I mean probably 10 or so).  Eat around noon (I forget what, but assume it was around 800-1,000 cal worth of food), spend an hour or so on gmail/Facebook/CNN/People/Google Reader, watch TV.  Eat 800 or so calorie "snack" around 5.  Repeat internet / TV cycle.  Eat 1,500 calorie dinner around 10.  Watch more TV, then more internet, and go to bed around 1-2 am.  (Note that there was no shower or brushing of teeth or anything hygiene related this day. And, personal as it may be, I sleep naked and kept on that outfit all day, so... I'm looking like a real winner here
Saturday - Repeat of Friday, with a shower (I always brush my teeth in the shower) in there somewhere (though I was still naked all day.)
Sunday - Repeat of Friday / Saturday, save for showering and going to church @ 7pm.
Monday - Repeat of Friday, again no hygiene. 

Notice that there was not a single productive thing done in there, save for church and cooking meals, ridiculously high calorie and unhealthy as they were.  No cleaning.  No time spent reading the Bible or in prayer.  Throw in a few phone calls (one with a friend, and probably 3-4 on Fri/Mon with my husband) and that was it.  I mean, I don't even shower or brush my teeth when I get in that state!  It's disgusting!  Totally wasted time that I'll never have back.  Pretty sad.

I'm not going to play the whole, "I used to be this way, but look, God intervened now I'm awesome!", card.  Way too many Christians do that and it's pretty grotesque, in my opinion.  I will tell you that I'm working on building some discipline into my life.  For one, I went through the DVR and deleted all the shows save for the ones I really care about... that list is still pretty long, but I cut out a LOT and that's a good first step.  I'm toying with the idea of setting a limit, either number of shows or hours per week, and cutting back to be within those boundaries, but I need to pray about it because my Tami-tendencies would lead me to go crazy and only watch like 2 shows (The Office and Heroes) and then I'd overreact and suddenly NEED to watch 45 hours of TV a week.  Probably not the best idea, methinks.  With the TV, though, I think I'm going to set some limits on watching TV while Brody naps, because all of a sudden I'm finding myself craving his nap time so I can watch TV.  I'm not sure about the limits- maybe only during his second nap?  Maybe only 1 show per day?  I dunno.  But I definitely need some.

Another issue is that when I get all lazy and into a TV-coma I completely quit reading.  I'm halfway through 3 really awesome books, and I need to read those while Brody's napping.  Also, I have all of these great art supplies that I bought like 2 years ago, so I'm going to start spending more time with those.  I have a few friends that I really want to send cards to, and I have tons of great card-making materials, so I'm definitely going to try and be more artsy, probably on Saturdays and maybe some on Fridays.  Plus, I have some projects I want to do, like sanding down our kitchen table (it's good, solid, wood) and staining it a darker color.  It's honey blonde right now and I don't like that color... I like deep, rich wood tones.

Then there's the exercise-- I had a mini-epiphany on Tuesday night while watching The Biggest Loser, one that brought to climax a bunch of thoughts that have been tumbling around for a few weeks.  Losing weight requires hard work, and it's something you earn.  I have never really had to work hard to earn anything in my life.  In sports I was always sort of middle-of-the-pack and though I wanted to stand out as a rock star I was pretty willing to settle for mediocre because the work required to be awesome wasn't so much my forte.  I've never had to work hard to make friends, because I'm generally jovial... I have had to work somewhat to keep deep relationships but I see in myself the tendency to let things slip when they require too much maintenance.  Plus, for the close relationships I do have, the work doesn't really feel laborious because I love the people so much, so that doesn't qualify as hard work.  This inlcudes my marriage- it's not easy by any means, but I so love Jason, and he's so amazing, that it doesn't feel like a burden to do the work...and when it does I just avoid certain issues until they don't seem so intimidating.  

I mean this not to sound prideful in any way, but I also have never really had to try hard to succeed academically.  I always did well in school and put in minimal effort- I NEVER studied in high school, and in college I would put off writing papers and studying for exams until literally the night before, and I'd still usually get A's on them.  I learned basic guitar very quickly, and then once I breached the easy threshold and started to enter into "this requires time, sacrifice, and serious effort to get really good" I stopped progressing.  I'm literally as good at the guitar now as I was after about a month's worth of practice... I'm decent, enough to impress some people, but not great by any means.  God allowed me to have a decent singing voice, so I rely on my natural talent and have never really worked to improve it in any way, never tried to go anywhere with it.

Hopefully you can clearly see a pattern in my life- I don't work for anything.  The second things get challenging I either quit or settle for where I am.  I've never really had to have discipline- I got by spiritually by thinking I was a really good Christian since I went to church and tried to read my Bible, though I only  went to God when it was convenient, and I looked and seemed spiritual enough to impress and be accepted by some, which was good enough for me.  I never had to handle my time well with regards to studying, being as I rarely studied, so I don't discipline myself with time.  I have always been able to handle finances just enough to live paycheck to paycheck so I've never really been disciplined with money.  I've skirted by on my personality and never challenged myself to really get better at anything.  If something gets too hard I either avoid it or quit altogether.

Yet, watching TBL, seeing people grunting and screaming and being told that they have to work hard, to earn their weight loss, hearing Jillian blast a girl for trying to give up when she's able to be there and 200,000 people were denied, really hit me deeply. I want to be healthy.  I want to lose this weight.  I want to go to Seahawks games.  I want to go for jogs around Green Lake and actually like it.  I want to have amazing sex and not be limited to one position because of my enormous stomach and chubby thighs.  I want to get fit enough to have a baby in 2-4 years, and in the meantime I want to be able to be more active with Brody.  I want to enjoy eating healthy, and to wrinkle my nose at the thought of fast food.  Really, I just want to live. 

I've been hoping that a spiritual revelation, or getting enough readers on this blog, or simply wanting to lose weight will change me.  Thus far... not so much.  I'm starting to grapple with the grim reality that this will require work.  Real work.  Hard work.  Keep on getting up and forging ahead every time I stumble and want to give up work.  And I don't like it.  It's clear to me that this is why I have struggled so much to this point, on the roller coaster of highs and lows, and that I have to deliberately change my mind and keep fighting because this will never change.  If I hold out for the miracle pill that boosts my metabolism to burning 5,000 calories a day (you know, the same one that will convert fat and cholesterol into the nutritional equivalent of spinach and blueberries) but I'll keep on not living until then, and that's not really the way to spend my life. 

I have more to say, but this is long, and I think Brody just woke up, so I will stop here.  There is the good news, a way that the Father has been ministering to me and teaching me, and how I do see myself changing, but I'll hit on that later, hopefully tomorrow.  Feel free to share thoughts, or to sock it to me- I can take it :)

-T