Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Running is my therapy....

So the past few days have been really crappy for me. Among other stressful things that occurred, the job that I've held for 7 years is in some jeopardy and I've been stress-eating. The crappy thing is that I recognized the trigger, yet was so emotionally f*cked that I really didn't care too much about trying to remedy it.

Yesterday, I hit the proverbial "rock bottom" of my bitch-fest and dediced I was done. I'm tired of feeling like crap and feeling pudgy and fat because I'm eating like crap. I am the only one who controls what I do and if I feel like crap about myself, its my fault, because I'm the one who did it to myself. Vicious circle of DOOM!

So anyways, yesterday afternoon at work, I dediced I was over it, grabbed my IPOD and went to the gym we have here. I ran a mile in under 12 mins and instantly felt better - nothing like sweat, endorphins and killer music to make a girl feel fabulous. I realized yesterday that running is the best therapy I've got (and its free!). While I'm running, I can allow my head to escape - to ignore any other crap that's going on around me and for just a few minutes I can truly relax before jumping back into the clusterf*ck that can be life.

So today, I decided to try the experiment again, and received the same results.

Sweat + Muse (or anything else on the IPOD) + Hard Physical Movement = Happy Me

So far today, I have ran 2 miles (total mileage is over 2 miles thanks to the cool down walks) in around 11:20 each and I feel amazing. I've burned an extra 345 calories according to my Digital Display and that's fabulously awesome. I have Zumba tonight as well, so I don't think I'm going to run anymore today.

One of my favorite quotes from the amazing Bob Harper is "Its not about playing a game, its about fixing what's broken" - for me, its not about beating someone, or competing with someone, but instead I need to truly start looking inside and figure out why am I sabotaging myself so easily. Why am I eating things that are crappy for me, but justifying it because it "fits into my deficit for the week" or "I haven't splurged in a while" - what's driving this behavior??? Why do I feel like I need to reward myself like that, or that my stress will subside if I eat certain things??? The only thing I've learned is that my stress level actually INCREASES when I eat crappy food - because on top of everything else I feel guilty about it. This is what really needs fixing. Not the scale, or the measurements, or the clothing sizes - I need to fix my head and then all of those things will come with it.

I fully acknowledge that the past week has shown me that I still have issues with food. No one is perfect, and no one will ever be able to truly be recovered from eating disorders (I've concluded that I will always suffer from 3 different ones that manifested over the course of my adult life - anorexia, exercise bulimia and binging disorder) - each day is a battle and some days are easier than others.

When I'm running, I lose myself, but I often discover that I find so much more than what I was looking for initially. Perhaps all the positivity that comes from accomplishing something wonderful is helping fix some of the negativity that still resides inside. Maybe I'll never know for sure what truly goes on internally while running - but for now, "running from my problems" truly helps me out.

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