{back to basics}

So as it turns out, it's super easy to talk about being ambitious...to want it so much. I fell short in the actually being aspect of it. And so here I sit. Stressed out. Frustrated. Feeling literally sick to my stomach.

The scale is up 2lbs from the end of the competition, not horrific, but I know I've gained back some inches.

This morning I bailed on my friends who invited me to go to boot camp (again) and I tried making up for it by lacing up my running shoes and resuming my 5k training. About 5 minutes and 30 seconds into it, I felt like I was going to die. I wasn't prepared. At. All. Sure, I'd stretched and all that, but I wasn't hydrated and I'm fairly certain cinnamon sugar on toast and a diet dr. pepper doesn't qualify as a balanced breakfast (Seriously Deborah?? You know better). Realizing it would be foolish to continue running (jogging? shuffling?) in the desert without having had a drop of water in the past 12ish hours I headed home.

So it has me thinking about preparing myself and what choices need to be made so I'm not where I'm at right now, because let me tell you, it bites.

Junk.

I remember the first time I thought I was fat. I was in the 4th grade and I was wearing blue and black hounds tooth patterned tights. We had just come in from recess and as I plopped down in my chair I saw that my thigh looked bigger when I rested it on the seat of my chair. I lifted my leg up and down several times watching the shape change. I was horrified. Ashamed. It was completely ridiculous. I wasn't a "fat" child; I wasn't rail thin as most 4th grader (I had started developing the previous year) and in my 9 year old mind that made me fat. Things got worse as I continued to develop; with curves and a training bra came taunts and name calling, relentless teasing. I remember a boy who teased me every day as I walked home from school. He would shout that I had hidden melons in my top, making the other kids laugh. I would fight back tears and the urge to flash him just to get him to leave me alone. In the 6th grade a girl called me "fatty" in front of the entire classes. It crushed me. I could go on and on. Rumors, people talking about me when they thought I couldn't hear, putting glue on my chair during art class, name calling right to my face. So many hurtful things said and done over years and I took each one as truth. I had a big nose. I was fat. I was ugly. Worthless.
I wish I could go back and help that young girl. Help her to see herself differently, but I can't yet. She's still a part of me and that's something I need to deal with. Part of me feels that I'll only be worth something if I lose these 79lbs. Another part worries that even that won't be enough.