Unfortunately, I've let more than just my blog lapse in the last year. After all the hard work that I put in, losing weight and gaining fitness to run a half marathon, I fell into a slovenly pattern of laziness and poor eating. I can spout a lot of excuses about stress and moving house, but at the end of the day there is no excuse. I let the fat guy beat me.
Its hard to process the feelings that have been running through my mind recently. There is a lot of negativity and disgust. There is also a lot of fear. I imagine this is what an alcoholic or a drug addict feels when they relapse, because in effect that's what I've done. I've relapsed into my bad habits. Eleven months ago I ran 13.1 miles; now I'm getting winded walking up two flights of stairs.
There is only one way out of this. One day at a time. Accountability has never been my strong suit. I know how to get things done, but even after doing them for over 18 months I was still susceptible to the same pitfalls that led me down unhealthy roads in the past. I'm not going to dwell too deeply on those today, as the wounds are still very sore. But today I'm reaffirming my will to overcome them.
I've been working up to this moment for a while now. Its not like I've ever actually given up on being healthy. In my mind I've kept making plans, setting goals for myself for some race in the future. I even started a hash tag on twitter called #teamreboot. When the time came though, I never took the actions to achieve, I stayed in my lazy little box. Several times I took the first steps, but didn't follow through on steps two through... well, through infinity. That's the point. There need not be an end. There needs to be a change in lifestyle.
So today I've stepped up again and tried another start. In the spirit of true honesty, this was inspired by some dark feelings. I have a group of friends who are running marathons today at Disney World. These were people who started focusing on running because they saw what I was accomplishing. I'm super proud of the work they've done, but seeing them achieve this goal made me look at myself with disgust. Instead of wallowing in those feelings, I am using this as a catalyst. Today I started Couch to 5K again. If I think about how far I've been, it hurts to be where I am, but I also know that I've done this before so a lot of the uncertainty is gone. There are going to be battles ahead, some that I will win and some that I will lose. I will take each one as it comes and strive to move forward in a more positive direction. The fat guy may have won this time, but I've beaten him before and I will conquer him for good.
