The 'good' fight

I feel like I am going to echo a past post of Ruthie's, and I am sure that my words will probably be spoken right back to me. Good thing I don't remember them, right? haha!

Today was a long hard day. In fact, it was just one of a long string of harder and harder days. I feel like I have been working so hard and striving and FINALLY NOT giving up, and yet, I am barely getting any rewards for my single mindedness. I have been running my TAIL END off since before Thanksgiving. I have not missed more than a week of running. And though it is surprisingly easy to run 5 miles, it is still a struggle to get out the door. If I want to run, well then it is a struggle to find the time in the day. If I have all day, well wouldn't you know it... that is the one day I just DO NOT want to run. What is up with that?

And lets talk about food. I have been avoiding nutrition all together. I really dislike cooking and to make matters worse, I have absolutely no confidence in my abilities, and since I always 'fear failure' well that just makes it that much more annoying. Then add to all that, my son's food sensitivities. Boy howdy will that throw a wrench in things! The good side of that is that I have really had to learn how to plan meals. I have had to learn how to cook new things. I have had to learn how to make things appealing to a very skinny, sometimes finicky two year old that cannot eat most of the world's 'staples'. Notice anything about those sentences.. I have had to learn. Hmm... Reminds me of one of my favorite Scriptures. (bold is my own emphasis)

Philippians 4:11-12 (New American Standard Bible)

¹¹Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.

¹²I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.

Now for the reason I am even blogging. Today was just the last straw. I have really cleaned up my act nutrition wise, and it has finally, been paying off. I have lost 7 pounds in the last month. I had gained a couple of pounds the months before, even the month that I ran 70 miles! So I finally came to terms with the fact that my health needs a whole-istic approach. I can't neglect any one thing. I have to balance my fitness goals with my bodies nutritional needs. Good thing I have not been doing all this running just to get thin. Boy would I be all kinds of mad and screwed up in the cabeza! Anyway... I am doing better, really trying, doing really well! Then today. Ugh, today.

I seem to have figured out how to make the Eating for Life cookbook work for me. And it is working. Unless I don't get groceries. Hmm, isn't that how it works? I got home from 'work' today, tired, hot, and frustrated with my now fit embellishing two year old. I am hungry, so very hungry. Oh, crud, no food. I have to cook. I do NOT cook during nap, no way. So I throw myself in to a mental freak out and mental toungue lashing over my lack of planning. I did eat a cheese stick and a small glass of OJ. But still, for an hour and a half I berated myself for that major slip up. It was brutal and harsh and just plain mean. I feel like I was a kid watching my mom get yelled at. (Somehow I never really took getting yelled at to heart, but the reaction of my mom when she was being yelled at just really cut to the core of my soul)

I talked to Sweet Love about it, and his brilliant comment was... "is it really that hard for you?" Ugh, he did not get it. I am sure I did not give him an accurate picture, and I am sure I can't even write it all here. I guess this is just a marker in my journey to a balanced life. I mean marker like when the Israelites would stack up rocks and call that place a name so that when their children would look on that pile of rocks, they would remember the story, and the lesson learned. Man am I channeling my verses today! (I have REALLY enjoyed that part of my journey... seeking my God through reading His Word. It is very completing)