Day 5: Cinco de Wholeo

After binge watching a few episodes of the new season of The Biggest Loser I was all set to get into bed and doze off peacefully, until I realized I hadn’t blogged yet.

Today was a weird mix. I woke up feeling really strong mentally. Even at work my brain was clear and super focused. The first half of the day I was able to go at hyper speed getting everything done and blocking things that would normally drive me crazy.

Then the second half, my boss who had already lost her grip on the day said a few too many things to drive me up the wall. I got frustrated and lost my drive. She’s a nice person but a horrible manager. She doesn’t know how to manage – how to build and coach a team. She tends to try to control everything and will step on my toes as she crosses into the boundaries of my job duties when I’m perfectly capable, and actively completing my tasks. It’s literally the most annoying thing ever.

It grates on me and once again, I left work sad, frustrated, annoyed and hopeless. My mind had wandered to thinking about all the things I could eat. Pizza, pasta, Greek, burgers, mexican… It is Cinco de Mayo after all. I drove home.

Even turning down my street, there is a CVS on the corner and I thought for a second of stopping for chocolate. No, I thought, just go home. When I got home I just turned the AC up and laid on the couch. I didn’t do anything.

Then I had an apple with some cashew butter. Then I watched TV for two hours while simultaneously scrolling through my phone. Then the moment came. I needed to eat dinner a d didn’t want o do hay, or make lunch for the next day. I thought:

Forget it, I’ll buy lunch tomorrow

No, dude you just spent like $100 on food this week make a salad

Screw it. I’m ordering a pizza.

If I order a pizza and eat it, I don’t have to tell anyone.

Ughhhhhhhhhhj I hate being fat and feeling like shit.

Oh I have bacon. And eggs.

Ugh there’s dishes in the sink, my pan is dirty I don’t want to clean it.

This is stupid. This is all stupid.

Then the magic happened. I ran the water, soaped up my sponge and started cleaning the pan I needed to cook my bacon. I dried the pan and threw the rest of the bacon in, 4 slices. The pan wasn’t hot yet so I decided to kill time by doing the dishes. I did every dish in the sink.

When the bacon was done I drained the grease and threw in a few eggs and some tomatoes. I topped it with my new ‘everything but the bagel’ seasoning and had a quick, filling and satisfying dinner.

I couldn’t go the extra step to throw some greens or fruit in with dinner, but I didn’t care, I didn’t go off plan.

After eating I laid back down on the couch and watched more tv while I scrolled through Reddit. At that point it was almost 8 o’clock and I was ready to get in bed and sleep and just see what happened tomorrow.

Right as I realized that – a commercial came on for the new season of biggest loser and that you can stream the whole season now on USA network. I kind of took that as a sign.

I watched the first episode. I decided I was gonna watch the second one too. As the second episode was starting I paused it, jumped up and made my salad for tomorrow AND Thursday. I packed my lunch bag with breakfast, lunch and a homemade iced coffee. Then I resumed watching TV.

I watched in total, 3 episodes of the show. I didn’t do anything productive- at all- the 6 hours I was home from work… except feed myself healthy food and set my future self up for success.

Sometimes success and productivity don’t look like what we think they should. There’s a lot more I feel I could have done to help myself, but there’s also a lot I could have done to harm myself and I chose not to do thosee things either.

This is the spirit of the challenge. This is the heart of change, those moments, those decisions, those actions. All that I could do today after work was veg on the couch, in solitude. And that was enough.