The ever evolving schedule

Sorry for the absence dear readers. It has been a busy few weeks and I am still adjusting to a new schedule. Which brings me to the main topic of this blog entry.

It is very easy to work out, eat right and get proper sleep when you have nothing to do all day. It is also relatively easy to maintain a regular schedule if your job has a regular schedule. Unfortunately things have not worked out in my favor this fall and I find myself back working at a movie theater. I am incredibly thankful to have a regular job and paycheck, but working at a movie theater presents its own series of challenges in my fight for health. The biggest being that it completely messes with my internal schedule. Some days I have to work until 1am, some days I have to be at work at 10am. My sleep schedule has gone completely out the window which has very much affected my energy level. This is one of those moments where I realize how important sleep is, or at least a regular sleep schedule. My body does not know what to do when I get off work at 1am and need to unwind, so I am up until 2 or 3 in the morning some days, and other days I am so beat I fall asleep at 10:30. It is something on which I am still searching for a grip. I need to find a happy medium.

Having a job, finally, has also done things to my eating habits. I tend to eat later now, especially if I work at night and do not get a lunch break until 9 at night. I am still finding ways to mostly eat healthy. I am eating more Subway now. I know the bread is not good, but I am packing my sandwiches with many more vegetables than I have in the past. My biggest concern is not letting myself go hungry. During my many years at a movie theater, I have noticed I tend to let myself go hungry a lot because I do not want to change my eating patterns, but I know I need to. Letting myself go hungry is not going to solve anything because it will lead to gross binge eating. Once we get groceries back in our house, I am going to make a real effort to make lunch more often. More likely is making bigger dinners and taking leftovers. All of my life I have underestimated how great leftovers can be. It makes me want to go back in time when my mom would throw away leftovers because no one would eat them. I would eat them now. I have noticed that when Martina cooks she tends to cook more, giving us leftovers and I tend to cook just for the two of us for one meal. That may change soon. I need to make sure the allure of popcorn does not overtake me.

Which leads me to the next point: temptation. While on shift, I can drink all of the soda and eat all of the popcorn I want, for free. 3 weeks in and I have had a total of ZERO soda and only roughly 3 cups of popcorn. BOOM!! My last movie theater, I would have competitions with people about who could drink the most Mountain Dew during a shift and so far here I have not had any soda at all. I am not saying I have not had any soda in the last few months, but I am really proud of myself for not giving in at work where I can drink so much of it for free. However, I am probably most proud of how little popcorn I have had. When I do popcorn at work, I load it with butter and popcorn salt, which is worse for you than regular salt. It is heavy tasty salt. Knowing I get free cheese too makes my will power even more awesome because popcorn with popcorn salt and cheese is heaven. It truly tastes like what I imagine food in obese heaven tastes like. I was so worried about all of this temptation and so far I am proud of myself. For those who know me very well, giving myself actual credit for something is new and still makes me slightly uncomfortable.

Lastly, I want to talk about something completely different. Because of the blog and my Facebook statuses about my weight loss, it is pretty well known that I am fighting for my health. This leads to many conversations about it. People want to know what I am doing, how much I have lost and tell me how great I look and how much happier I look. My entire life I have never believed anyone when they tell me I look like I have lost weight. I feel it is something skinny people say to fat people to make them feel better about themselves (this sentence is decidedly vague). I have always felt people said it to me to be encouraging, and then when I walk away they turn to each other and comment how I look as obese as ever. I know I am losing weight. I can feel it in my body, I can see it when I put on winter clothes I have not worn in a year. Logically I know this is working, but still, when people comment on how good I look, all I can think about is how full of crap they are. I cannot help but think they are just being sweet friends who want me to succeed but deep down are thinking how nothing has changed. This mentality HAS to change inside of me. It has taken me a long time to accept that people are rooting for me. It has taken me months to even sort of grasp why so many people are on my side. Who am I to have all of these people invested in my journey? I am constantly being sent words of encouragement, inspirational quotes, videos, stories and people are sharing their own battles and demons with me. It is overwhelmingly touching, so why can't I just accept the compliments like an adult instead of stammering on about how I still have so far to go? I have worked damn hard and deserve to accept people saying nice things. This is the hardest thing I have ever done. And it will continue to be the hardest thing I have ever done. I am not rewarding myself with brownies or pie, so why shouldn't I reward myself with the acceptance of nice words? That is my goal, to take the compliments as tasty brain rewards.


Oh one last tiny thing: Thanksgiving is the one day where it appears perfectly acceptable to binge eat and it is the one day of the year I never worry about binge eating. I do not care for turkey, potatoes, or pumpkin pie, or any fruit pies. I am rarely, if ever, stuffed on Thanksgiving.