Wide Awake Now

Two nights ago, I had the craziest dream.  The kind of dream that wakes you up in the middle of the night and leaves you breathing a huge sigh of relief once you realize it didn't really happen.  I'm pretty convinced that I had this particular dream due to some underlying anxiety over my training session I had with Bo earlier that day.  I will tell you about the session, but first, the dream:

Bo is always hammering home to me that I've got to get in some protein in the afternoon to keep me full and to restore my energy, especially after a workout.  So I dreamt that I finished up a particularly brutal training session with him and headed off to make my protein shake.  In my dream, the gym is virtually empty so there is no one around anywhere.  I'm making my standard chocolate protein shake when I reach down into this super-sized carton of french fries and begin piling them into my shake!  As I'm doing this, suddenly all of our personal trainers are showing up around me but I'm oblivious to it as I continue to load up fries from this bottomless carton.  Suddenly I look up to notice Bo coming around the corner, and everything goes into slow motion mode as he notices what I'm doing.  He's yelling out, "Nooooooooo!" and elbowing his way through the trainers, and in a panic, I start frantically taking the fries out of the blender and trying to hide them.  By the time he gets to me, I  am a huge mess and I have piles of smoothie-covered french fries hanging out of my pockets!  Bo's face is bright-red with fury and he grabs my blender, holds it up in the air and points to me.  "Do you see, people?  Do you finally get what I have to deal with with this woman?!?"  I start crying and in an attempt to defend myself, I begin explaining that I was trying to get my carbs in that I didn't have that morning.  Bo yells out, "What world do you live in that you think putting greasy fries in a protein shake is a good way to get in your carbs?"  I stand there in silence as all of the trainers are looking me up and down like I'm some sort of pariah, and then I woke up.

Wow, Dream!  Is that crazy or what?  I know without a doubt that the precursor to that dream was my training session that day - Thursday.  That was the day Bo had set my goal to 194, and guess who was firmly planted at 203?  I told him I hadn't felt well and I was just eating all carbs to settle my stomach.  I wasn't working out at all and I wasn't watching what I ate because so many things sounded unappealing to me, and then it was just a string of excuses beyond that.  We started our workout and I could just feel the disappointment radiating off of Bo.  He was quiet and then finally said, "When do you think you are going to start taking this seriously?"  Not to make me feel bad.  Not to attack me.  Simply a question to find out the truth.  If I hadn't been doing dumbbell raises with my head down, he would have seen me crying.  "This is your weight loss journey, Amanda.  You've already said that you don't like where you are, you don't like your clothes being too tight, you don't like feeling bad about yourself - so why do you keep sabotaging yourself?"   Humiliation scalded over me like hot lava.  There are so many reasons behind self-sabotage and I have become a total expert at it.  Every time I start seeing small successes, it's like I know I'm going to screw-it up eventually, so why not just get a head start?  Truly, I don't want to think that way because I know nothing good happens with an attitude like that.  I have a lot of things to figure out - a lot - but I know that I never want to feel that way again.  To feel unworthy of a better life, of a thinner body, and of feeling amazing about myself.  The way I felt that day was pretty much the complete opposite of amazing.

I told Bo, "Well, if you're thinking of firing me, you can't because I already paid for all of my sessions, so ha!"  To which he replied that he has never fired someone and he doesn't want to start now.  Relieved, I just explained that I'm sick of the excuses, too.  The stories, the lies, the fiction that I create about my current state of health.  I going around acting like no one's going to call me out, but that is precisely what Bo did, and thank goodness he did it.  I don't want to keep screwing up, promising that I'll start over "tomorrow, after So-and-So's party, after this upcoming birthday, after Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas," blah, blah, blah.

I started paying attention that moment.  Really, really PAYING ATTENTION.  The light bulb has come on.  Not with a flicker, but with a strobe-light intensity.  Something has shifted and something has begun.  After four weeks of jacking around and not taking it seriously, I see just how serious I need to be.  The excuses have been replaced with focus, and now when I say I will not waver, there is no little voice in my head claiming otherwise.

I am finally going in the direction I need to be going, and I will be running full-blast to that finish line.  No more "French Fries as Carbs in the Smoothies" excuses!!!