Weakness

Friday update!

I can feel it starting.  That inexorable pull towards bad behaviors.  That siren call towards things I enjoy, but shouldn't.  That tide moving me towards failure. Blah, blah, etc.

Last week I knew why I had to stop eating sugar and had to lose weight.  I had a scare with the BIG D and decided I would rather stick around for some folks. This week, the news of victory over the root causes of that scare has me questioning why I should keep going.

I mean, I *know* why.  If not for these efforts, a 5.2 A1C would not have happened.  I was at least pre-diabetic. Every test, measurement and symptom pointed to it right down to the metallic taste in my mouth.  The only thing I lacked at the time was the money to be able to do anything about it... well, kind of.  I mean, we examined a bit of that in a previous essay.  fear plays a huge role here.  Now I am fearing something else.

Without the immediate threat, keeping myself honest is more difficult.  That's a problem.  It tells me I am at risk of giving up or backsliding.  hell, in some ways I already have.  Sure, I am making my fitness goals (116% of goals last week, on track for similar this week), but there's a thing of blueberry ice cream in the freezer with a couple of spoon marks in it made by me.  There's a cookie I ate, and the fried rice I devoured and... well, you get the point.  I've been cheating because I don't have to worry so much about the sugar.

Except I do. Whether or not the diabetes scare was actual (the doctor seemed skeptical), where my body was and what I was doing had a very adverse effect on my health.  A scary one.  One which had me near paralyzed, unable to move with any quickness, unable to walk up hills and one that hurt my knees and ankles just climbing up or down a single flight of stairs. One which had me tight chested and unable to catch my breath if I over exerted.  There were symptoms galore I could have chosen from, it was the diabetic scare that woke me up, and it is the reaction to that scare which took care not only of those symptoms, but the others as well.

I suppose it all ties to crisis level thinking. I got used to thinking in terms of solutions to immediate problems and spurning the long range in an effort to just keep going.  I needed to years ago, as it kept not only me alive, but my daughter. I had to solve daily problems like getting food and a roof, so thinking about other things was impossible unless they rose to threatening those other things.  The health issues I was facing rose to that level, so I had to change them, but something else began happening in the process, I started to have to thing long range to solve the problem.

The immediate solutions wouldn't work.  I'd simply be left int he position of so many dieters, bouncing back and forth, up and don the scale, peeking ever higher each time.  Hell, it's what I was already doing and I had the weight loss/ workout Facebook groups and posts to prove it. I had to change the method of thinking about the problem, and with this impetus I was able to push the weaknesses aside and concentrate on the solution that would work.

Now it's worked, I need to change the underlying behaviors which lead to justifying a whole bag of candy in one sitting or a 12 pack of soda in a day.  I need to find another reason to care, and I am afraid I won't.  I only hope that fear is enough to drive me away from the weakness for a while until I find the way through.