confessions of a junk food junky gone runner

I'm supposed to be working - was actually supposed to start posting payments 2 and 1/2 hours ago - YIKES - the Internet is a death trap for me....

So by some crazy fluke I ended up on Oprah's website reading Jenny McCarthy's blog. I remember watching her in HS and thinking she was so funny (I admit raunchy, but still funny) and I loved how she just didn't care what people thought. I always admired that. So... who in a million years would have thought she'd end up being that really health conscious mom? I sure didn't. 

Anyway - has anyone read the book The Yeast Syndrome?? Jenny recommended it and I think I'm going to. Apparently Jenny has a sugar addiction and bad acne - me too. (She also recommends Sugar Blues.)I have so many books I want to read (and rarely are any of them at the library and then I feel bad buying a book I know I'm only going to read once and of course this time it's not available on kindle so then I can't get it cheaper and blah blah blah... I used to read so much and well now, I spend my time blogging about how much I want to read... and I don't even bother using periods and just make tons of run on sentences b/c I'm practicing just not caring what you people think!) Let me know if you read it and what you thought. 

So lately I've been thinking about me and who I am and what I'm all about etc, etc. kind of off the topic stuff there, but I hear people talk about the big deep issue of why someone is overweight (on Oprah, Biggest Loser etc). YES, I realize I'm not really in that category and I just have 13 pounds to lose at this point, BUT really all of that is chalked up to really great metabolism most of my life. Trust me, if everything I have eaten in the last 30 years REALLY showed up I would definitely be the woman who couldn't leave her house. I'm not trying to be mean - just real. I got lucky some how and was able to eat really badly all of my life. Lots of junk, lots of cokes, lots of eating out etc. So yes I was blessed, but yet still have a problem that needs some attention. I was gaining an average of 10 lbs a year awhile back - that means that if I had continued like I was going then I would weigh approx 370 pounds by the time I was 50 years old (yes I really did the math) - not good. So... really if you are still reading I'm impressed. I think this is really for me to just get this out... 

SO... I've been trying to think about WHY do I eat like I do. I think most of it is just habit, but there is something else there. Not sure just yet, but I DO know that I don't like to tell myself no. There is some mental block there (all this is so much jibberish), but I don't like to say no on doing things, going places, buying stuff, and eating. What happened yesterday during my killer run (that I have NEVER done in my life) was that I was able to keep going even though I REALLY wanted to stop and I learned that this running thing is ALMOST more mental than physical and somehow in that crazy hour of pain I was mentally able to continue on. I got some weird urge to run with my eyes closed (can you imagine what that would be like?? me running through my little town with  my eyes closed.) I didn't really do it, just kind of squinted. I listened so intently to EVERY single word of my songs and told myself that I really could do it. AND then I DID! Something seriously empowering happened yesterday. I realized that b/c I had just ran 3 miles without stopping a week or so before that I told myself you did it before so do it now. Then that turned into maybe you can do more. I think all this conversation in my head was really just something to keep my mind off the burn in my legs and back not to mention the annoying pain my toes were in. (Time for real running shoes, now that I think I might REALLY use them.) But either way it worked and MENTALLY I made it. AND you would not believe how stinkin proud of myself I was last night! Like tell everyone about it proud - like didn't eat the ice cream that I really wanted proud b/c I was afraid one little bowl of ice cream would cancel out that run. 

So all day today I've been thinking about all this junk and my eating (you know as I finish off the box of Whoppers that I totally shouldn't have bought Friday). See the proud didn't totally last - LOL! I think mentally I'm getting stronger and this running thing is mental and maybe that's why people do it. I THINK I just might be getting it. Thirty years old and am JUST now getting why people would run just to run. It's about fighting that inner self and winning, about pushing yourself to do something you never thought you could AND actually doing it. That feeling when I FINALLY made it back to my driveway was unreal - like I don't think I've had that before. and NOW I want that again. Today I was thinking I'm supposed to not run today, but I kind of want to - I wonder what I could do today or how much can I do tomorrow. I may just have the bug. 

So... I THINK this runner inner challenge mental deal I've found  can be translated into my food issues. If I can do the running thing surely I can simply NOT put that candy in my mouth - it sounds so easy and so simple and for ME it's just about impossible, but I also thought running was impossible before too... maybe I can beat the Junk Food Monster that lives within me. Maybe....