In the Ditch of Life

I’ve been thinking about a lot of things that I wanted to write about lately. There is one super big thing that I am so excited to gush about, but alas, I must wait. (I AM NOT PREGNANT. As soon as I typed that I realized that was the first thing everyone would assume). Anyways, the reason I haven’t blogged lately is because I’m in a rut. A deep, funky, bad mood inducing, life altering rut.

You see, at the beginning of March I went on a health kick. I was eating healthy, I’d given up caffeine, I worked out almost every day for 1-2 hours, and I was on top of my shit. (shit = laundry, chores, bills, work stuff, friend stuff…life in general) Not only was it a piece of cake for me to turn down junk food (get it?), but I didn’t even really crave it all that often. I was so healthy I didn’t even want to be unhealthy! I got motivated to do all that stuff on my own, but shortly after I started working out my siblings and I started having these fitness challenges. And there is nothing like a little healthy sibling rivalry to get your juices flowing, am I right? I was feeling pretty damn good about myself.

Fast forward to June 2, the day our last fitness challenge ended. I didn’t win, my sister in law is a beast on the treadmill, but that didn’t bother me. What bothers me is that the day the challenge ended my motivation came to a screeching halt. That’s an understatement; my motivation went running full speed in the opposite direction and never looked back. And sadly, it wasn’t just my work out routine that suffered. My house is a mess, the laundry is out of control, phone calls need to be made, I haven’t been talking to my friends, my poor husband is probably tired of me lashing out at him, my car is due for inspection, bills need to be paid, groceries need to be bought, books need to be read/studied….and I am just not feeling it. And to make matters worse, I can’t stop eating junk food!! I am eating a “share size” bag of skittles as I write this post. I can’t remember the last time I ate a vegetable. Or a fruit for that matter. I went three months without eating a French fry and now it’s almost a daily occurrence. I am terrified to step on a scale to see how much weight I’ve gained. My clothes don’t fit differently yet, but I definitely feel like crap.

How do I get out of this rut? I’ve tried retail therapy. If you follow me on Instagram (jmelynng) then you’ve seen some of the super cute new clothes I’ve gotten (and on clearance!!), but retail therapy is not doing the trick. I went to yoga last Saturday and I really thought that those 75 minutes of calm strengthening would help….it didn’t. It just made my gluteus hurt for two days. I know that this battle is mental. I tell myself everyday “self, you’re going to go home and eat a healthy lunch while you sort through the giant stack of mail on the counter”…. and every day I find myself at another restaurant ordering something else fried or greasy. Le sigh.

I’ve put all this out there because I’m hoping that telling all of you how pathetic I have been will motivate me to be less pathetic. Now that I am done with this self loathing post, and that giant bag of skittles, I’m going to have a healthy lunch and clean my house. And later I am going to go to the gym and then have drinks with a couple of friends. This weekend I am going to spend three days taking excellent care of my sweet baby niece and my sick mother, and on Monday I am going to get up early with a positive attitude and I am going to conquer this rut!!