Today's Thoughts

I returned from Disney depressed.  Not because I had left behind the happiest place on earth or my adorable nieces or nephews and not because I had to return to real life: laundry, dishes, cooking, work.  No, I was depressed because it meant a return to fighting my weight. I didn't think about calories or exercise or food choices at all while I was gone.  I ate whatever I wanted, but also walked a million miles, and came back not having gained a single pound.

I keep thinking about this throw-away line from that last vlog I did.  Something about "I am trying, sort of, not really, and I will try again and that is maybe the story of my life."* Do I really want trying, failing and trying again to be the story of my life?  Like that's all you will talk about when I die? "Oh Jill, she was nice, she had great hair and she tried really hard.  Never succeeded, but bless her heart she kept trying." My instant reaction that is "NO!" I do not want trying and failing and trying to lose weight to be the story of my life.  But then I try to think about what I do want the story of my life to be.**  I'd want to be remembered as someone who laughed a lot and made others laugh a lot.  I'd also want to be thought of as a loving, caring person. I don't want to be defined by my stupid inability to eat like a normal human being.

I've also been thinking about my motivation.  I think motivations I've used in the past are not going to be good enough this time.  Rewards like jumping out of an airplane or a trip to Europe just aren't going to cut it.  I think I really need to find my motivation in my health and my future.  I do not want to be an old person who has heart problems and mysterious aches and pains and diabetes because of my weight.  I've never been a person who spends much times in doctor's offices, never been under anesthesia (besides whatever they use to take out your wisdom teeth, which I think is something different from what they use to cut out a significant part of you?), and I don't really ever want to become that.  But it's so hard to grasp hold of the future as a motivation tool. I'm not really sure why, I guess it's just too easy to live in denial about, until I do develop serious health problems and its too late.

Those are the thoughts I am thinking today.  I'm not sure they've led me to conclusions that will take me forward along the path to general healthiness, but they are percolating.

BTW, I was organizing pictures this weekend and found this from when I had lost 97 pounds.  I can't remember her very well, but it looks like a different person.

*How pretentious is it to quote yourself in your own blog? On a scale of 1 to 10?
**I think the appropriate Sunday School answer is, as always, Jesus.