Time to refocus

This morning I did a hill sprint session with my personal trainer. I wasn't expecting it to be easy, or fun, but I was expecting to be able to do it. It was perhaps a little ambitious trying to do it the day after I did a pump class, and put extra weight on the bar for most tracks. But whatever, it was still hard and I hated the feeling of knowing I could not push myself any further. It does sound odd, I know, but when I trained for the marathon I felt like there was no limit to my fitness, I could push myself to the edge, and then push myself some more and after a 30 second break I'd be fine. I don't want to do a marathon again, but I want to get back to that feeling of fitness. Anyhoo, that was wake-up call number one. It was loud enough. Wake up call number two came when I got on the scales and was the heaviest I've been for six years. I will give myself a kilo here and there for the fact I was a bit bloated, but still ... it's time to cut this sh*t out. Previously, this may have sent me into a tailspin of freaking out and hiding from people for a few weeks, eating salad and protein, and exercising like a demon. That, however, won't work this time. Because on that course, exhaustion is the end-point and I do not need to do that to myself. Instead, I need a slow and steady plan of attack. I need something that I can fit in around work, without having to kill myself to arrive on time (that's achievable), boost my incidental exercise (walk home most days), sleep more, and eat better. It's not great timing for all of the above ... but I can start making small changes. If I charge head-on into a whole new plan, I will immediately run into obstacles. But if I try to do one new thing every week, or one thing differently, it will start to make a difference. My plan: Saturday: Walk to work to collect my car (work Christmas party tonight, and I'm leaving it here) Sunday: Boot camp Monday: Morning run/PM pump Tuesday: Body Balance AM/Christmas shopping PM (this must count for something) Wednesday: morning run Thursday: Boxing Friday: Personal Training This is achievable, the running in the morning is the hardest bit if I'm not getting myself to bed at a decent hour. I must make myself get in bed ... and go to sleep, not read until 11.45pm and suddenly realise I have to wake up in six hours. I am going to record my meals for a week, honestly, and see if I can get my calories in deficit. That is the goal and it's achievable. And if I go over, so be it, I won't beat myself up ... just move on.

First blog post in forever

It's been ages since I sat down and wrote a blog, but right now I feel like there's just so much "stuff" building up on top of me and I need to vent and let it out before I explode. Or cry at work. In no real order of importance, these are some of the things bothering me at the moment which I do not know how to handle aside from trying to carry on. 1) Frenemies. A very good friend of mine, who has been my support and someone I could talk to about everything and anything, has over the past few months turned "frenemy". I won't go into implicit details, but she ticks a number of the boxes outlined here: http://www.cosmopolitan.com.au/relationships/relationship-advice/2012/12/friend-or-faux-signs-of-a-frenemy/ I know she is dealing with her own sh*t, but I feel so betrayed. And hurt. I sometimes find it very hard to trust people, and this is f*cking why. I put my trust in someone, and tell them things that I would generally keep to myself, and they repay me by cutting me down in public, making negative/backhanded compliments and then passing them off as "helpful advice" when pulled up on them, and the final straw - talking about me behind my back to mutual friends. I'm not the dramatic type, so there will be no grand showdown, instead that friendship will slowly come to an end. Which I'm sad about, but I am quite hard enough on myself without having so-called friends join in. 2) My career and "the future". Having been made redundant twice in the last three years, I have come to truly appreciate job security. The constant feeling that things could go arse up and I could be, once again, looking for a new job is extremely draining. The second time I was made redundant, I made an incredibly bad job decision by taking on a role (and staying for 18 months) that involved unrelenting pressure, stress, and unprofessional behaviour both from within my own company and my client. It pushed me into a hole of fatigue and sickness, and a very, very bad headspace. I never want to be there again. My current role is much more lifestyle-friendly, but I have concerns about the stability of the company. More than that, however, is the future. Do I want to be doing this forever? What do I want to be doing forever. I have been thinking about doing a Dip Ed and becoming a high school teacher and/or TAFE teacher ... but there seems to be no security in this profession either. I really need to take some time to think about where I truly want to be in five or 10 years time, because right now all I can manage is "employed" and hopefully earning more than I am now. 3) My health. I feel like I'm on a slippery slope ... in fact, scratch that, I AM on a slippery slope. I started smoking again, socially, but it's gradually becoming an every day occurrence. I do NOT want to be here. Even as I type that, though, a voice inside says "f*ck off, yes you do". I am not enjoying the side-effects of smoking, of course, but I am enjoying the fact it gives me some momentary relief. From what, I am not sure, but when I'm smoking I'm not thinking about all the other stuff that's bothering me. Speaking of which, my fitness/weight. I am trying so hard to accept myself and love myself regardless of my weight, because I do not want to define myself and my self-esteem based on a few kilos. Which is literally what the difference is between me feeling bad about myself and me feeling great, around four kilos. But a few years ago I worked really, really hard to change my life because I was not happy, and now I feel myself sliding backwards. I am trying really hard to stay positive, because my fitness is still in the excellent category, if only I could get my body/metabolism to play along. 4) Flatmate sh*t. My flatmate is ... ridiculous. First, when I asked her - more out of courtesy than anything else - if it would be a problem if my BF stayed the night, she said no. It made me feel ... like a houseguest rather than a paying tenant. Her reasoning behind it was that her mother was staying with us, but on the night in question her and her mother were out until 11.30pm, long after the BF and I would have been in bed, and then still hadn't stirred out of bed at 8.30am the next morning - also an hour and a half after the BF would have left to go home. The second point on the flatmate, the drama queen factor. I cannot STAND this. She turned what should have been a simple request into a "house meeting", and worked herself up to the point where her hands were shaking and she was nearly crying. Her request? Please don't smoke outside/around the house. Does she say this? Nooo. She starts off by saying "when I was first looking for a flatmate, two years ago, one of the things I said was an issue was smoking. Now, at the time you weren't a smoker and now you sort of are and it's an issue". So, I said "no worries, I won't smoke anywhere around the house or units at all - okay?" But no, this was not enough for her. She had to go on and on about how a neighbour had complained, and she had to apologise - for which I apologised and offer to go and tell them it wouldn't happen again. No, no - I'd done enough, apparently. I was happy to leave the conversation there, with my sincere apology for smoking within 50 metres of the front door and pledge to not let it happen again, but no. She then needed to start raving on about how bad it is for me, and asking me why I'm doing it. THIS I do not need, especially not from her. I refuse to have my lifestyle choices questioned by someone who considers dinner to be a plate of wholegrain rice crackers, sprinkled with a thick layer grated cheese, microwaved for a minute and then covered in a liberal splodge of BBQ sauce. (I kid you not, I've seen her eat this at least five times). All it needed was an adult conversation - Her: I hate cigarette smoke, please don't smoke anywhere outside or within the vicinity of the house, a neighbour complained. Me: I'm really sorry about that, I totally understand and I absolutely won't let it happen again. I'll apologise to the neighbour if you like. Her: No, that's fine. All good. The over-dramatised "house meeting" I could have handled, and the anti-smoking rhetoric as well. I want to stop, as soon as possible, I just need to get myself there in my own time. The final straw was her juvenile "hiding" in her bedroom for the evening, and every evening after that. I mean, WTF? How old are we here? 5) Final point, I promise, the "boyfriend". Fark me, but why does this stuff have to be so bloody hard? I've "finally" met someone, after more than four years essentially single (with some three-month stints in there), who I really, really like. And - most surprisingly of all - he really, really likes me. The fact he lives two hours away is, basically, sh*t ... but can be worked around. It's more the fear I have building inside of me. I've built up my walls to protect myself, and whenever I've been seeing someone I've pretty much kept them up ... so that when things go to sh*t, which they inevitably do, I know the a$$hole hasn't really hurt me because I kept those walls up protecting what I needed to. I know it's the most ridiculous cliche, but I am just completely terrified. I want to just surrender to the way I feel when I'm with him, and trust that he will be worth risking the heartache ... but I honestly don't know if I can go through it all again, I've always picked myself up and carried on - the "strong" one - but I'm so tired of being strong, and I feel like the next hit I take will be the one that carries me over breaking point. I had been feeling great about the BF, but he's had to go back on a commitment he made (about coming to see me and meet some friends) because of other arrangements with his ex-wife and daughter. I know, I know, I know I shouldn't be upset - because he must put his daughter first - and it's not that I'm upset that he isn't coming to see me and meet my friends ... it's more that I feel this is a warning or a premonition of how things will be. While I know his daughter absolutely must come first, and I wouldn't respect any father who didn't make his children his priority, I don't know if I can accept always being second ... or less. I don't know if my skin is thick enough to have weekend plans cancelled at a hour's notice because something has happened - this happened before our first date, when his ex-wife called him and declared she couldn't handle having their daughter for the night, and that he had to go home. Having said the above, the thought of just walking away from what could be something amazing is absolutely unfathomable ... but, the "self-protector" in me is already planning ahead. I just wish I knew what the right thing to do was, that someone could just come and say "you should stay with him and risk it all, because it will all work out in the end" or say "no, move on now and save yourself a lot of hurt". Okay, I think that's it for now. I appreciate these are all first world problems, but they are problems - my problems - nonetheless and causing me a LOT of emotional stress and turmoil. I know I will get through this sh*tty period, I just wish I felt more confident about it.