I just got back from my first trip of the summer.  It was full of things I couldn't have done last summer, or even a few months ago:

  • Doing the look-what-I'm-trying-on ritual while shopping with a girlfriend
  • Wearing a bathing suit
  • Wearing a bathing suit in public 
  • Riding a zip line (I didn't actually do this because we ran out of time, but I would have been under the weight limit this trip, when I wouldn't have been a few months back)
  • Climbing up monstrously steep hills to get to the line for EVERY slide at the water park
  • Riding water slides in inflatable inner tubes (I would have been over the weight limit before)
  • Share a hotel room with another person and not be self-conscious that I would keep them up by snoring all night

 

...Which is why I gave myself permission to do a few things I haven't allowed myself to do much of during the past few months on this mission of mine:

  • Eat a sandwich and fries from Wendy's (it was the only option on the road, and I chose this over salad)
  • Eat a personal pizza from a popular restaurant at the vacation site
  • Eat free ice cream from the random ice cream social our hotel threw the first night there
  • Eat onion rings.  Yeah, that's right.  Onion rings.
  • Eat a piece of cheesecake from a hyped-up cheesecake place near the vacation spot
  • Fall short on steps for 2 days (not consecutively, at least)
  • Eat homemade no-bake cookies (not more than 1 a day, at least)
  • Make my own MASSIVE chocolate bar and take 3 bites of it before sticking it in the freezer until after I win my 2 pending Kickstarter Diet Bets
  • Eat 7 Milano cookies

 

It may sound like I am getting borderline passive about my habits of late, but I'm not on a slide.  I'm still 100% committed to getting healthy, and still 100% confident that I can.  This is part of the practicum of adapting to real life permanently.  I'm not going to deprive myself of food when it's part of an experience of being in a new place, and I feel comfortable partaking because I fully know -- and stay within -- my limits.  I am strong enough not to bow to group mentality.  When my friend splurged a little extra, like when she got a milkshake in the middle of the day and offered to treat me to one, I passed.  When the meal I ordered at the water park included chips in the price and they insisted they couldn't give me a reduction if I didn't take the chips, I still chose not to have them.  I am keeping it all in check.

I only lost .4 pounds this past week as a result of my slackened grip these last few days, but I can honestly say I have no regrets.  A loss is still a loss, and I made calculated decisions to deviate from my usual plans with full knowledge it would yield lower weight-loss numbers on the scale this week.  I feel at peace with that, and I feel pumped to see how much I can work off this week.

I've talked before about feeling in control of this, so that's nothing terribly new or exciting.  The reason this was a big deal for me is that the friendship I ended in January reared its ugly head the day before I left on this trip.  My ex-friend sent me an e-mail saying sorry, blah blah blah.  I had to search my soul about whether or not I wanted to pick off that scab by resuming contact, even if only to say "too little too late, fuck you very much" and call it a day.  Do I respond at all?  If no, will the unsaid things eat me alive?  If yes, what do I say??

Instead of responding right away, I decided to practice this patience thing I've been working on and cool my jets about it.  I thought it over during my long walk before the drive to the destination the next morning, and I could feel my blood starting to boil just gaming things out in my mind.  Realizing that, and thinking of what a toxic relationship that was, and thinking about how quickly I said "I don't think I do" when the friend I was traveling with asked me later if I wanted to be friends with that person again, it occurred to me that anything I said in response would be an invitation for all that negativity and stress to enter my life again.  I've come too far for that.  After four full days of thinking it over, I ultimately opted for sanity and decided to say nothing in response to the ghost of that dead friendship.

I did all of that, while on vacation, without surrendering to the mild anxiety of the decision that lay before me by pigging out.  I'm still nursing a damn heel spur, too, mind you.  I had every excuse in the world lined up in a neat little row for me to play like a poker hand in the name of over-indulgence, and I purposely left those cards on the table.  I feel proud and satisfied, and I completely stand by all of the choices I made over the past several days.

Nice try, old life, but you lose.