It’s hard to hold myself accountable sometimes.  It’s important, though, that I am honest with myself about where I am and where I am headed.  I had a good talk with a friend today and was honest with myself and my friend about how I am currently approaching my health and my responsibilities.  The talk definitely encouraged me to keep moving forward.  I am proud of myself for being so diligent in making healthy choices.  Healthy foods, healthy workouts, healthy habits in general.  It’s good stuff. 

I have been striving for going to bed by 10pm and getting up at 5am so that I can hit the gym in the morning.  Surprisingly, this schedule works well for me IF I get to bed on time.  If I get to bed late, I am exhausted the next day, which messes me up the following morning.  For this week, I am going to work really hard at sticking to my schedule.  I decided to unplug my TV for the week as well.  I don’t generally watch a lot of TV to begin with, but sometimes I sit on the floor in the living room and instead of getting up when it’s time to get ready for bed, I just space out into the television (mostly universal sports or PBS, but still a waste of time).  So, I’ve unplugged the TV.  I am also setting restrictions for the computer: there will be no watching of TV on the computer in my bed.  Actually, there will be no computer anything from my bed.  The computer will stay out of the bedroom.  I hope I will get some really good rest this week.

I did something scary for me: I have asked a friend to help me take measurements once a month.  I decided that I should keep track of my journey so that I am aware of what my body is up to and so that I have documentation of where I’ve been.  I think the information will be useful  in telling my story someday (I do public speaking events sometimes and I like to use personal motivational stories when connecting to my audience).  It will be motivational for me to look back at my journey and how far I’ve come and seeing that distance will spur me on.  Also, my pride will help to spur me on.  Since I know my friend will be seeing my progress each month as she takes the measurements, I will want to have some progress to report.  That should help me get to the gym on the days that I don’t really want to get up.  Asking this friend was hard for me because nobody in my life knows how much I weigh and what my measurements are.  This friends is definitely small (smaller than I anticipate I will ever be), and I already feel very large next to her.  But I know she will help me and do nothing but encourage me in my journey and I can trust her with this information that makes me feel so vulnerable.  Having this friend help me is an exercise in trust and also faith in myself and acknowledgement of my own self-worth.  So it’s a good thing.   I’m kind of excited to see what my measurements are next weekend.  I have decided to measure around the 1st of each month.  I will continue to weigh myself often (I know it’s bad, but I get on the scale almost every day-it’s a daily reminder to behave with the food that day so the number doesn’t go up).    I wish that I had taken my measurements at the very beginning, but I didn’t.  At least I’m starting now.  J