Every day on my wall calendar at work shows one of three things: a big O means that I wasn’t there. A bright, colourful sticker means that I made it all the way to three o’clock without buying a snack. A great big X means, well, I didn’t earn a sticker.
In February, I had a few good weeks. In March, I have had a few bad ones. I can prove it; I can see it happening. The evidence is right there on the calendar.
To me, each sticker represents a day filled with healthy choices. I ate only the food I brought with me to work, and it was healthy food, and I felt satisfied with it. It was a day where I was able to do the things I needed to do to tend to my physical and mental health. I was able to deal with my stress and other factors affecting my mental illness using something other than food as a comfort. It was a day where I was able to move closer to my specific goals for physical and mental fitness.
What was the difference between February and March?
I believe that it started with French fries. I went out for takeout with some friends, and the venue was a place where healthy options were not available to me. I thought it would be okay to have the French fries and the Southern fried chicken, and that I’d be able to start again the next day. I was wrong. After that, I have been wanting French fries, white cheddar popcorn, corn twists. Cookies. Chocolate, especially chocolate. All of the foods that are so emotionally comforting, but that move me further from my specific goals once they pass my lips. And I haven’t been able, or more likely I haven’t been willing, to say no to those things since the end of February.
The evidence is not just there on my calendar, of course. It’s also in my body, and in my thought processes. The muscle definition I had begun to build up by choosing to do push-ups has faded a bit. The depression has come back, along with its friends irritability, confusion, and paranoia, to a level where it takes nothing to make me cry.
Obviously it’s not just about whether or not I snack during the day at work. It’s about having the energy to make the healthier choice each time a decision presents itself. It’s about having the energy to make hundreds of these choices every single day. And right now… I don’t. Right now I feel like I won’t have the energy to make a healthy choice for myself ever again. It’s just too much work. And I am so very tired.
But February says that I can do it. February is covered in stickers. February says that I made enough healthy choices to feel really good at the end of each day, physically and emotionally.
February says that I can start over, beginning with the very next choice I have to make. And of the options available, all I have to do is take the one that will move me down the path to my goals. If I stumble, the path will still be there, just a choice or two away.
If the path is covered in stickers, so much the better.
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This is honesty personified. The last three paragraphs show you can do it. All is looking good from where I see it. Stick with the stickers… the more the better, Linda!