What is holding me back - Excuses!

Since yesterday's blog I've had a few people say to me 'You write exactly what is in my head'.... I'm thinking today's blog may just be one that a lot of people identify with.

I love pre-season, because the first of the tasks makes you face up to all of your bullshit excuses. I have a truckload of them, some bullshit - some genuine. Still. After all this time I still make excuses if I don't want to do something. For the last several months, I have not wanted to eat well or exercise, and I have a mountain of really valid 'reasons' not to do it. They're legitimate reasons....right?

Looking back I'm not too far off being the woman who 12 months ago started this blog after signing up for 12WBT last year. I couldn't look in a mirror and the few times I braved reflective surfaces, it usually ended in tears. I spent the vast majority of my time sitting in a house that was so chaotically disorganised I was in a constant state of sensory overload and overwhelm. Simply walking through the door was enough to send me into the fridge to search for solace. I was so tired, all the time - completely unable to do the simplest of things without getting tired, deep down into my bones kind of tired. I was not the mother my children deserved - I spent more time in front of a screen than I did spending quality time with them. My fibromyalgia was a constant source of pain, chronic pain that was with me every moment of every day - my head was a fog, my brain unable often to preform the simplest of cognitive functions. Worst of all I hated myself for the shell of a person I was.

Fortunately - I am not back there completely, but it shames me to say, I'm not too far away from it. My house is less chaotic (mostly due to getting some domestic help) my kids are getting much more of my time and screens in all forms are getting far less. One major thing that is keeping me from falling back into the hole is my job. My job has also been my biggest excuse as to why I am like this again. I guess the other thing thing that keeps me from falling completely back into a pit of self-hatred for allowing myself to become a pathetic shell of a woman is how I felt last year.

Last year I got off the couch. Last year, I threw away my excuses, I followed 12WBT - I lost 12kg, I trained daily, sometimes for 2 hours - I learned to run. I lifted weights, and I felt great. I was a workout machine. I went from being an overweight blob with less than zero fitness and a dodgy heart.  You see just over 3 years ago, after a major car accident, my heart stopped, several times. This lead to a stay in a CCU, a cardiologist, an electrophysiologist, tilt table tests, and the possibility of a pacemaker at the ripe old age of 31. So when I say I had zero fitness and a dodgy heart I mean I was too scared to even break a sweat walking in case I had a heart attack. So I am not back THERE - I know my heart is strong, I know my body is capable....but any desire to become the workout machine left the building when I started back at Uni at the start of the year.

What stopped me - my excuses. Some of them were actually probably valid enough to be called reasons, but most of them were excuses. At the start of the year, I started back at Uni full time - and with 2 Aspie kids and a farm to look after, the full time study consumed every second the kids and animals didn't take up. Then about a month into the study, my now employer calls me in for an interview. I had already been knocked back for a job by the organisation twice, and was sure I had no real chance of actually getting the job, so I thought I'd do the interview for practice. I was still feeling pretty good about myself at this point and decided, 'What do I have to lose'? So I got the job, which is casual, but with pretty much full time hours. I cut Uni back from full time to part time (and have actually taken a semester off) and work is starting to slow down after 4 months.

Living out of town, and having kids who travel to town for school I need to be there to get them on the bus, and I need to come home when I've finished work because it's dark. That primarily became my excuse to stop. It is valid - and I can't actually see any way around it. My daughter and I even tried getting up at 6 a couple of times to go for a run, but it was pitch black and really dangerous - so it lasted all of 2 days.

My fibromyalgia is really playing up - and mostly I know it's because of what I put in my mouth. A lot of mornings I'm so intent on getting the kids a good healthy lunch and getting them on the bus that I forget to make my lunch, which inevitably leads to me to buying shit for lunch. I work in a big office for a small city - but it has all the good stuff, soft drinks, chips, chocolates and lollies. We all know that if we have a big KFC binge for lunch, that by afternoon tea break we need sugar to get through the afternoon. Sometimes, I need one an hour after lunch. The more sugar I eat, the more I crave, the more I need.... then I eat more sugar to help my brain work, to help me get through the day - there is just not enough sugar to satiate the craving. I try and of course then I feel like crap - I know it's 'bad' it's 'wrong' to eat these foods, so then the food guilt starts - followed by the pain. People with fibromyalgia shouldn't eat sugar. It causes pain. It stops pain. Briefly, while you're sugar buzzing... the pain goes.

Last year, I really enjoyed looking at my excuses, because ultimately most of them were just bullshit excuses. Made up because I was fat, lazy and ate my emotions. I watched the video online and then proceeded to spew out my excuses - then easily found solutions to the excuses. This year I have not done this task. I have thought about it a lot, and have pondered the solutions to why I will have a hard time getting around my excuses this year.....  I will do it. I have to say,  it really is a lot harder to find solutions to your excuses when they are legitimate reasons. This will not stop me. My job is keeping me off the couch, putting me back into the real world - but it's also keeping me from training when I'm used to. I will work out how to work around work - work around and include kids - and hopefully get a few workouts with the Warrior chicks, because I know we've lost our mojo, but I also know we'll find it again.

Now, I'm off to make a list and to work out some solutions - before the next task is unlocked tomorrow!