Balance.

When life gives you a box of chocolates, or some lemons, or a tornado or a big sunny double rainbow - I don't know.  Feed the tornado some lemons while you juggle chocolates trying to explain to one rainbow that the other one just forgot it's not its turn that day.

Life makes just about that much sense.

These last couple of months have been interesting!  I feel as though I've fallen into a trap of apologetic blogger who means well but doesn't post enough, etc.  So, let's just get that out of the way.  Sorry I haven't been posting as diligently as I once did.  But, well, rainbows are fussy and it turns out tornadoes love lemons.  The chocolates?  Well, they looked delicious - but I'm trying to maintain my girlish figure, so I thought I may as well learn to juggle.  With chocolate.  It's been interesting trying to figure out how to balance it all.

Which brings me to today's lesson:

Balance.

How does one obtain this?  Some people just seem to inherently have it.  Others never have it, but they're really good at juggling.  Some people learn it eventually...  Others just don't have it, don't get it, and never will.  I'm not quite sure where I fall on this spectrum, but the last few months have been a lesson in this department - that is for certain.

As I've mentioned before, I don't have a dimmer.  My switch is ON, or it's off...

Kalamazoo State Theatre, Kalamazoo, MI.  My home away from home.

I work at a beautiful, historic, old theatre.  Tucked in little coves along the theatre walls are these fantastic Liberace-esque candelabras.  Until a few years ago, their only light setting was on.  Really, really on.  We wanted to install dimmers so that we could dim the lights during our events to still have that romantic, old-school aesthetic, but we knew that it was going to be quite a tedious and laborious process to get it done.  This place is nearing 90 years old, and changes like this are always quite a feat.  Getting to wiring tucked in walls made of plaster, horse hair, and more is always a bit of a trick.  Every time I sneak into the theatre during a show and see the gentle glow, though, I'm reminded of how very much it was worth it.

I've been trying really hard to install my own dimmer, but apparently it required a couple of meetings, some brainstorming sessions, a cost-analysis, some compromise, and then some difficult rewiring to install this stinking dimmer.  Actually, I'd prefer to not think of it as a dimmer, but more of a...  balancer-thingamadoojob.  Yes, that's much better.

Nearly 90-year-old light control panel.  The
switches next to the tape marked "on" actually
turn on stars and clouds on the theatre ceiling.

I'm quite hard on myself when I'm not as diligent about my food.  I stress out when I have a day that I didn't work out, and I really get perturbed when there are a few days in a week where I don't work out.  But there is so much life happening - meeting people, changing circumstances, fun things that pop up, and more.  I've had so much fun getting out and about, making an effort to be present, do things, have fun with people, enjoy new and old friends.  My role at work has evolved in a wonderful way, bringing along new, interesting challenges, and I am one busy, busy bee.  Finding time for everything I want to make happen in a day is a challenge.

So many interesting, and thankfully, good things are happening.  I've been reminded recently by a few of you outstanding people who I've gotten to know through this blog that, sometimes, it is good and it is necessary to pause, reflect, see how far you've come, and appreciate where you're at.

I'm in the mood to turn the lights on full blast again.  Brighten it up a bit.  But, I suppose adjusting my balancer-thingmadoojob to let life happen every now & then won't kill me.  I may not be as full bore at all times as I have been, but I'm certainly enjoying the glow.

5k and A New Day.

Tweet



Sunday.  It should have been a great day.  I should have been really pleased with myself.

Should have...

Last year, my grand ol' city of Kalamazoo became host to a new marathon - Borgess Hospital's Run for the Health of It.  The company I work for decided to sponsor any of us who wanted to get involved, so I decided it'd be a great idea and a great example of my new-found healthy lifestyle to take part.  I had a hard time coming alive that day, but I pushed myself through it and I finished in 52 minutes.  I was disappointed that day because I knew I did over 3 miles regularly in a little less than that, but I was pleased that I'd decided to partake.

It's so interesting looking back.  One year ago, I was about 285lbs and had lost about 30.  I was in better shape and feeling really good about myself.  I walked along with my friend Erin, each of us with our pump-you-up tunes channeling into our brains through one earbud so we could chat along the way.  We huffed it!  We did the math, and we walked an average of 4.13 miles per hour and I was really pleased with the steady pace, even uphill.  It's really weird to think that I did the same thing today as I did a year ago, but about 90lbs lighter, and about 10 minutes faster.  It felt good to improve and feel how far I've come.

But.

After all of that, I couldn't stop thinking about how my lack of diligence has caught up with me and I spent the better part of the day feeling so very disappointed in myself.  I know I've put on a couple of pounds.  I've had a rough month, which is no excuse.  But instead of my exercise enhancing my weight loss, it's helped me juuuuust about break even.  I've realized that if there are easy, yummy things around me, I don't say no very well.  I'm just fine when I can control the foods around me and how they've been prepared.  When I'm not in as much control as I'd like, though, I find myself either eating without even realizing what I've consumed, or almost having an anxiety attack about how what I'm going to do so that I stick within what I know I should consume.  I've had a few awkward moments at restaurants when I pretty much have an anxiety attack over what I'm going to eat because it seems like there isn't anything reasonable for me to eat.  True story.  Ask my Mom.

What am I going to do about this?

I've gotta celebrate!  I've come so far!  I'm perfectly capable of making good choices, but I realize I'm still in a phase where I have to log my calories the majority of the time, because while I am a better eater overall, I still have times where I eat thoughtlessly and end up eating things that I shouldn't.  Work in progress here, people.  Work in progress.  And while this is nauseatingly overused, tomorrow really is a new day.  Today was a new day, too.  What did I do with it?  What shall I do with tomorrow?

I decided that today, I would reboot - get back to my good, ol' healthy eating standards and let my body get back to normal and recover from all of the things it's not used to processing.  I already feel better.

And what surprise awaited me on this day of getting back on the horse?  A phone call from my gym.  I work out regularly at my local Snap Fitness, and they started a weight loss challenge in the beginning of March.  We had to do the final weigh in last Monday, the last day of my gym membership.  I was really sad that I wouldn't be able to afford to keep it up, but it turns out  I will have 3 more months of gym membership.

For free.

Yep - for free.  I won!  Diligence pays off, and just because I may have flubbed up for a while...  Well, I am human, and I mess up sometimes.  Thank God for reminding me, though, that just because I screwed up, it doesn't mean that I am a screw up.

Tweet