Kari’s Blog

Buddies, let me tell you, yesterday was not me at my finest.  It seemed that every phone call I got at work was someone crabbing at me, talking over my explanations, and just being generally rude!  I’m sure it didn’t help that I was PMS’ing and my emotions weren’t entirely in my control, so holding my tongue on all the things I WANTED to say to these people was difficult. 
Because of my busy day, I wasn’t able to sneak away for the 2-hour lunch I had planned to get to the gym.  So I was feeling lame & disappointed about that.  Then after work I was heading to a basketball game with DF & friends, but since I worked later than expected, I had to go straight to the arena and wasn’t able to stop at home to eat the healthy tuna & cheese sandwich I had been looking forward to all day.  So then I was doubly bummed - missed out on my workout AND my good dinner, arrrgh!  By them time I got to the game I was feeling like I should just go home because I wasn’t in the mood to have an evening out.
I knew I needed to eat to keep myself balanced, but even with the day going so poorly, I found that I could not let myself give in and eat greasy game-day food!!  I knew that would just make me feel worse!  So I drug DF all around the arena until we found one single “deli” food stand, ordered a plain pretzel, a turkey wrap, and water, and felt pretty darn proud of myself.  The pretzel was delicious but the turkey wrap was disgusting - it tasted like wet foam wrapped in cardboard.  Ugh.  So I only got down half of it.  Then I was even MORE upset that I had tried so hard to be healthy and wound up with a disgusting, gross sandwich.
At this point, I somehow took a mental assessment of my situation.  I stepped back and realized that *I* was making my evening miserable.  I could either continue to feel like sh*t the rest of the night, or find an attitude adjustment within myself and turn things around.  Up until that point I had really thought that the evening was a total loss.  The realization that the power was within ME to make it different was huge!!  Well after that I flagged down a vendor and bought myself a bag of cotton candy.  Eating sticky fluff with my fingers always makes me feel better. :)  Believe it or not the stuff had “nutrition facts” on the bag and the whole bad was only 100 calories (pure sugar, of course), and I only had half of it, so it wasn’t a huge splurge.  Things were starting to look up.  Sugar puts me in a good mood (let’s not even GO down the reasons for this emotional eating symptom, lol), so I felt better.
At halftime, DF brought me back a glass of cheap red wine, which also happens to put me in a good mood, and soon I was cheering and screaming for the team and had forgotten that I’d even had a negative thought the whole day!  My enthusiasm CLEARLY spurred the team on, because we’d been down by around 2-6 points from the very beginning of the game, but in the 4th quarter we took an early lead and maintained it all the way through - to win the game!!!  Look at the power my positive thinking had!  I personally pushed an NBA team on to victory!! 

rn

Anyway, this is a long blog, but last night was a big eye opener for me.  Even when I was feeling low, I was ingrained enough in my healthy habits to push through and not dismiss my eating plans altogether.  And I discovered the strength to put myself in a good mood - a REAL, authentic one - not just a ‘happy face’ that I put on to get through the evening.  It was an awesome feeling and I wanted to share it with all of you!  I hope I can remember it the next time obstacles are in my path - to push them out of the way & move forward a healthier & happier person!

rn

Oh yeah - and GO BLAZERS!!!