Bad Mood, Bad Food, Bad Attitude...hey, that rhymes!

Ugh, it's been a tough week.  I don't know if it's the Thanksgiving eating or the resulting weight but something kicked me into a bad mood where I didn't care about my eating and I actually considered throwing in the towel on this whole fitness thing, if you can imagine that!  I figured I must be pre-menstrual but so far, nada.  The good thing is I have stayed steady with my workouts despite my bad attitude.

On Monday I hit the gym and did the upright bike for 25 minutes followed by chest/triceps/core work.  That evening I ate a bunch of m&m's that my mom had sent us home with to help with potty training.  After I acknowledged that I would not stop until they were gone I dumped the remainder down the disposal.  I was so irritated with myself that I could not stop.  So. Irritated.

Tuesday was a planned day off from the gym (poor timing) and that's when things got really ugly in my head.  I had more m&m's from my own stash for potty training and started into those.  Again, I couldn't stop.  I eventually put the remainder down the disposal.  But then I ate 2/3 of a pack of crackers.  And a bunch of dried okra snacks.  And a bowl of cereal.  And more m&ms.  I found myself thinking of words - in relation to my view of myself - like disgusted, disappointed, weak, not normal.  What is wrong with me?  Why can't I stop?  I want to stop, but I'm not stopping.  Ugh.  It was not pretty.  I finally went to bed with plans to go to boot camp in the morning and hopefully kick this bad thinking.

But overnight Marek decided our bed was the place to be and we were up for a good hour+ in the middle of the night.  That, combined with staying up too late to begin with, kept me from going to boot camp.  So I planned to go when Miguel got home from work.  My attitude didn't get much better during the day and by the time Miguel got home I really needed to get some exercise.  When I got on the treadmill at the gym I told myself, "Ok, we're going to use this run time to figure out what the fuck is going on and stop it!".  I thought a lot.  I concluded only two things.  I needed to stop with the self criticism.  Being harsh on myself will come to no good.  It's my go-to self punishment despite knowing it doesn't help.  The second thing I figured out is I just can't have m&ms in my house.  Ever, apparently.  After all that thinking I hit the weights and just rocked out to my music while doing back/biceps/core work.  I left feeling much better than when I arrived.

I had all kinds of ideas about the Thanksgiving eating being a trigger, that my willpower muscle got weakened by all that indulgence, that I was maybe pre-menstrual, or pre-menopausal, or post-crazy.  Maybe, this, maybe that - it didn't much matter because the run itself helped a lot.  By the time I was done I'd decided to go home, have a salad for dinner, and get a good night's sleep.  I felt a bit better already.  Unfortunately Marek came into our room again but this time was slightly less disruptive, he just went to sleep in our bed for a while and then went back to this.  I can handle that.  For a while.

All I know is my mind is coming around.  The negative feelings are lingering, I'm still mad about all the food and I know I need to just let it go.  I hope the scale is not too hard on me tomorrow but whatever it shows will just be a reflection of what I already know.

Today I hit the gym twice.  I went for an early workout and did the upright bike for 25 minutes followed by legs/shoulders/core work.  Then I remembered that I have a training session after work.  Oops.  At the training session I begged Ian for mercy and he went easy on me - sort of.  I got some exciting new things to add to my routine.  Single arm row with the cable - we'll see how these go.  They take a lot of mental effort to do correctly and I tend to shy away from that but we'll see.  Assisted pull-ups.  These I like and am excited to start doing.  Some killer ab stuff I'll have to go into later.  He got me off the hack squat machines and doing regular squats again but this time with a shoulder press thrown in.  And then this lunge thing on the smith machine that is questionable just given how much thought I have to put into doing them right.  And how hard they are.  My legs were SO fried by then, we'll see how I feel about them on fresh legs, hopefully I like them more.

Ian took my body fat with calipers and concluded 37.5 percent.  My tanita scale says 39 so I like the lower number.  In either case, I have a lot of extra fat.  News flash, eh?  The good thing is I'm feeling good again.  The negative attitude is lingering but almost gone.  I can't tell you how much I hate episodes like that but I'm just glad it's over and glad I resisted all the other crap that it came into my head to eat (KFC, other candy bars, chips, etc, etc).  That's good for something.