The Week in Review- Hard
I feel like every time I write here lately I’m complaining about how hard my life is, how hard my job is, how hard it is to stay determined to lose weight… The result is that I find myself avoiding writing so that I’m not such a Debbie Downer.
I like TED Talks, it’s true. I’m one of those people. I know they can be contrived and a little bit too much to deal with sometimes… That said, I don’t know about you, but I sincerely appreciate self reflective and thoughtful people. I like to surround myself with people who have active brains, who still think they can impact this world positively, who are thinking of ways to live life more completely, so I love the TED Talks and frequently go down a TED Talk rabbit hole. It never hurts to turn away from modern cynicism and intentionally look toward something positive, so here; watch this:
I watched this TED Talk right when it first came out in October, and one thing continues to stick with me- that hard is not necessarily a relative term. The talk is all about coming out of the closet. While, indeed, Ash Beckam is a gay woman who came out of a gay closet, she is using the closet as a broader metaphor for any hard conversation we need to have- be it coming out of the closet as a gay person, telling your wife you have just cheated on her, explaining to your five year old about an impending divorce or explaining why you are filing for bankruptcy. All of those are hard things to face and explain. At about the 3:30 mark, Beckam, says, “Hard is not relative, hard is hard.” She goes on to say that, “We need to stop ranking our hard against everyone else’s hard to make us feel better or worse about our closets, and just commiserate on the fact that we all have hard.”
That sticks with me. Throughout my life I have come in contact with people who, when I say I had a hard day, immediately knock me down by telling me that I don’t know what hard is. That I’m too young/privileged/inexperienced to understand what hard means. I liked that Beckam gave my hard credit. Life is hard, and when we are in the thick of it, hard is hard. Regardless of anybody’s perspective on the degrees of hard.
My life is privileged- I never want to imply that I believe anything other than that. But I also work really hard- at my job, in my marriage, as a mom, as a human- and sometimes those many hard hats get overwhelming. I never want to inconvenience anyone by complaining. I would prefer to put a truth on my website that showed me being ridiculously happy and successful- and I am most the time, but lately things have been hard and I can’t hide that away.
I committed to writing here for accountability purposes. I originally thought that meant surface stuff like, mileage and poundage celebrations, but this project has been as much about internal, emotional changes as about physical, nutritional and activity level changes. Those have been the hardest ones to contend with. I guess I’m saying I have to talk about the hard stuff. I have to speak to the hard, or else I’m not honoring this process of owning who I am to myself and the changes I am trying to make.
Speaking of my hard…
Right now I am in a challenging spot. I’m having a really hard time, nutritionally. Basically, I am eating as though I’m maintaining a high level of activity. I’m not terrible about workouts, but I can totally see why I’m not losing any weight. My skin is shrinking up beautifully, but I’m eating way too much of the wrong foods lately. I need to get that in control. My goal this week is to journal three times to inspire a return to smart food choices choices and reasonable portion sizes. I’ve started doing that thing again where I choose to eat a bag of pop chips that, while yummy, just trigger a deeper need for munchies since they don’t provide a whole lot of nutrition. I need to eat whole foods and get back on track.
Exercise this week was seriously compromised by a monsoon. I was supposed to run outside three times. On Monday it was gorgeous! Then it rained for the rest of the week. I’m from Seattle, so the rain doesn’t phase me that much, but this has been ridiculous. It’s like that stupid, fakey rain that falls in movies and renders the characters completely soaked in about thirty seconds kind of rain- that is what we are having all the time lately. I only got two runs in this week, not three, but I did get on the elliptical twice, as well, took two walks and did weights three times. While I didn’t meet my goals, necessarily, I feel like I made progress towards doing better. This week, my goal is to hit solid cardio (140-159 BPM) four times and weights three.
So, yeah, I’m in a hard spot in my version of life right now. I’m happy to report, however, that change is still underfoot. I’m taking control and attempting to make some pretty significant shifts in my life to insure a more successful future- both short range and long term across the board. Life has been hard lately, but I feel like the momentum is shifting and I’m swing in back to some balance. Thanks for sticking with me through the rough patches. 🙂
After the birthday party we made the rumpus room into a more user-friendly space by moving our couch and putting the elliptical and bike in the middle. It looks like a gym, but we are in there all the time now. It looks a little weird, and definitely needs some tweaking, but I like it!
***
NKOTB are playing four dates in July in Vegas. I would do things to go to one of those shows. I’m not sure what those things are, but none of them, sadly, involve paying 600.00 for decent tickets after I’ve already paid to fly there, stay in a hotel and be on vacation for the duration. Booooo. Maybe 2015.>
