Day Sixteen, Part I

It's too soon to give up! It's been a week of ups and downs. I had a great doctor's appointment this week. I emerged with a renewed since of hope that I could all of this nutrition and diet stuff on track. Six months without a hospitalization is a milestone to be celebrated and I have identified foods that me symptom (if not weightgain) free. And, then I went out to dinner. It was one of my favorite tapas restaurants. I felt that familiar twinge of awkwardness when it became clear that I would not be sharing my plates. Seriously, could I look any pickier? But, the plates I chose were familiar and tasty....until disaster struck. Disaster in this case was likely some trace of food that my system wasn't ready to try. I rushed off to the bathroom post-meal and felt symptoms the rest of the evening. I was mortified to say the least -- and, my mortification usually comes out as over apologizing or extreme crankiness. I threw a pity party for myself, but I know I need to move on. I need to keep perspective and make sure that I don't let the temporary setback become major. I am feeling gun-shy about eating now and am disappointed because I thought I would be able to experiment a little more after talking with the doctor. I'll have to take it slow.

The setback with the restaurant is separate and distinct from the wagon falling that I experienced during the week. Having people visiting shouldn't be stressful, but it was for me. I didn't make the effort to go to the gym and my eating felt frenzied and unplanned during the days. I make poor choices when I feel like I am reacting and not in control of my schedule and I am going to have to work on maintaining discipline and focus under circumstances that aren't ideal. However, I am only two weeks into the journaling of my journey and I already see the pattern that I need to break. When I drop my discipline in one area (e.g., schedule), it manifests somewhere else (e.g., diet), which in turn affects how I feel about myself and mood (e.g., who wants to blog in the middle of a failure)?

The hardest part of this is getting pass the mental roadblocks to success -- pity parties -- and keeping my vow to myself to stay committed and focused. So, I won't write here that I've got some brilliant new plan to be on track. The plan I had is a pretty good one and I just need to work on following it. Instead I am going to focus on what did go right this week and try to build on it tomorrow. And, tomorrow I will work on the next day and so on. There are a plenty of things that'll help me tomorrow, but I think I will write them in a separate post as a reminder.