Pre-Ohio Anxiety Revisited

I have been stressing (mildly, compared to my usual) before my trip. Ohio, again. Tomorrow I take off at 6:35 a.m. Our big legal conference all together in one spot, the lawyers and paralegals that work all over the globe for our company. We have community service on Tuesday afternoon working outside. I think it is yard work. We have breakfasts, dinners and cocktail hours. It is social. It is professional development. It is food. It is leaving my kids for four days during a school week. It is having someone else stay at the house in charge of kids and pets. It is getting myself and them all ready for this deal. It is stress and at times stress still = food. I have been bike riding, and also had one great workout at the gym on Saturday morning. I have been to my support groups and talked to my pals. I am doing all my good stuff. But boy do I have an appetite.

I try to eat high fiber, low fat, good old healthy stuff, but I had a pop tart run-in at midnight on Saturday night. I decided to start my WW points with the rest of the group at work, after my trip ends. That does not mean I am going to eat all crazy in Ohio. No way. I am going to try and stick with core plan foods. I have no idea what they are serving but normally there are healthy choices. I am hoping that I will get back to my 165 or 166 for my initial weigh-in. I am up three pounds and mildly pissed about it. I know why. It is not water. It is food. I kept track and I know exactly what happened and where and when it did. I like knowing but I don't like the feeling of being out of control. Even if out of control today is much better than the out of control of yesterdays.

I want to go easy on myself. The danger of entering into a tracking, measuring, and counting program is that I get that all or nothing thinking. And if I fail one day I take it too hard and get into a cycle of loving myself only if I perform well on the daily regimen and then hating and fearing myself when I don't. I want to look at this WW as a tool. A tool to use to learn what makes up a healthy food plan that I can use to live on. I want to use it to change my habits a little more and get some additional discipline. I want to use it for some additional accountability and some in person bonding with other people trying to lose. I DO NOT want to use it to beat myself up as I have done in the past with other programs.

I love trips, no matter where I go. I love hotels, airplanes, train stations, and so on. I get totally out of my routine thinking. Anything can happen. Anyone can show up. Maybe I will get so distracted I will forget about food and my recent increase in appetite. And that annoying few pounds. I need a break. I need an interruption. This trip can do that. Even though it is for my job, I don't consider it work. But since it is work related, it's all paid for by someone else! All I have to do is show up. I barely have to think My other Ohio trips proved to have a positive impact. I am going into this one with the idea that anything is possible. You gotta love positive thinking, right??

P.S. I have now taken to song writing. While playing with my guitar last night I came up with a haunting little tune for my post relationship poem. Yes, for some reason most of my affairs get at least one small poem. Some only a limerick. This one got an uplifting little piece I have not finished yet, but rather like. And I love adding music. I can get more mood or emotion expressed with chords on a guitar. More drama, and we must have drama, right? Notice I say "playing with" and not "playing" my guitar. I don't consider myself much of a musician but I have managed to get along pretty good with this little guitar my brother passed on to me. It pleases me to play. I also have a bass I play with as well.

More will be revealed.