Tough Times and New Goals (long)

Hi. First of all, I want to thank everyone who commented on my blog or through email. I had a really, really bad weekend, and it just overwhelmed me. I really didn't think anyone was reading this blog, so I didn't think twice about venting here. Thank you so much for all the support and encouragement. I especially want to thank Lyn at Escape from Obesity for her encouragement.

The picnic on Saturday was a disaster. I didn't eat too much or binge or anything there. My husband works for a company that keeps two-thirds of its workforce as temporary employees through an agency. My husband is one of those. The picnic was for everyone, but only the regular non-temp employees could take part in the activities. So basically, we were allowed to eat and watch. This isn't something they announced ahead of time. Maybe it was PMS, but this really aggravated me.

Then we found out at the picnic that next week the company is laying off most of the workforce for one or two weeks. While this isn't going to kill us, it was hard news to take when looking around at all the money the company spend on the carnival rides, concessions, and games at the picnic.

The picnic was held on the college campus where my son attends school, so we visited with him for a bit. It was a good visit until the end. Then he drops the bombshell that he needs a few hundred dollars for a trip he is required to take for his major. This also wouldn't kill us, at least not by itself. But on top of the layoff, I was panicked.

We live in a very economically depressed area. My husband was out of work for two years before he started working at this factory. My son has been unable to find a part-time job while in school because all the fast food and retail jobs that college kids would normally have are being filled with middle aged people trying to support their families and pay their mortgages. My job is pretty good, but we are still struggling to recover from the time my husband was unemployed. I feel like I've been in crisis mode for the past 4 years, and this weekend it was all just too much.

A friend invited me to a movie, and I went. I wanted to forget everything for a little while. So I drowned my sorrows in movie popcorn. The good news is that I didn't go completely off the rails into a binge. The bad news is...well, movie popcorn.

I've gone over our budget and options several times, and I think I have a plan to handle both money problems now. But I don't think I can handle the added stress of calorie counting right now. For a little while, my grocery list will be more about money value than caloric value. I'm not planning to just eat mindlessly or binge, but I'm going to eat what my budget dictates.

The gym is there whether I use it or not, so I might as well use it. This blog is about getting to Walden and trying to deal with my emotions in ways other than food. I can still do that. So here are my new plans for the next month or so.

• Continue exercising and racking up the miles to Walden.
• Continue tracking everything I eat. This is for my own awareness. I'm not trying to follow a calorie count. I won't be posting what I eat here, but if you want to follow me on My Fitness Pal, my username is conniebug76.
• Practice mindful eating by being aware of my emotional/hunger state when I eat. Food is food, not a friend.
• Meditate for 8 minutes every morning and every evening.

So there it is. Again, thank you to everyone who reached out to me. It helped more than you know.

One last thing: last Friday I made it to the gym, and I went again last night. Both times I was able to get 1 minute of vigorous activity. Now that I know what it takes to reach that level, I'm going to try to extend that time. The numbers below reflect the addition of those two workouts.


1307.51 / 2.17/ 1286.44