Easy? Pass!

I've recently come to realize, one of my friends truly is my rock (not to detract from my awesome husband because they are nothing alike except they both love me, but thankfully even that is in different ways!), she’s helped me become the person I am today, and sometimes I take that for granted, take her for granted. We’ve both come so far from the people were when we first met, sometimes I’m trying so hard to put that other me away I accidentally lock up my friend with her. We worked through so much of our trauma together that a lot of our relationship seems to be built on sorrow and heartache, but it’s not, there’s growth and strength there has been a lot of fun too. Sometimes I think of the people who haven’t been through as much crap with me as she has to be closer, but in reality, those relationships are simply more fun and light hearted and don’t hurt as much to look back on, that doesn’t make them better relationships, just easier ones. But at some point these “easy” relationships actually become hard to maintain because the bonds formed in your tougher relationships just aren’t there with the easy ones, so then it becomes effort to get together, to do things, but after all, who cares? You care when you get together, and you always have a good time, but those in between times? All that maintenance? At what point is it no longer worth it?

Sort of like my relationship with myself. Gastric Bypass has not made everything easier, my health is still complicated, my life still has all the ups and downs and spin-arounds I got to ride when I was unhealthy, but I actually care now. Yeah, I’d get irritated at my meter when it gave me a number I didn’t like, sometimes I would try harder, sometimes I’d just pout, but I was never dedicated to making changes. I enjoyed food and lots of it and I didn’t care about the long term consequences, it was easier not to. It was far easier to shoot up extra insulin than to exercise, but eventually even that stopped working, I built too high of a tolerance, and I screwed myself over.

It’s easy to keep snackable food around, easier still to tell myself it’s okay to have protein bars around for the taking, they have protein in them! But that path of easy leads to the road of justification, and those “healthy” protein bars turn into candy bars.

I’m finally learning moderation, and I’m planning ahead more now than ever. I’ve found a way I can still eat things I like (yes, still picking on protein bars) and have them around the house, but they have to be earmarked, bagged, tagged, and stored for specific meals on specific days. I plan my menus at least 2 weeks at a time, for the past  2 weeks, I’ve been using pre-,measured, pre-determined snacks/meals in brown bags, dated and stapled shut. Shakes are added as needed and dinner is lean and green. I’ve gone back to basics, I’ve stopped grazing and my weight is coming back down. I feel in control again, and no, it’s not easy, but it’s worth it. I’m getting pregnant in a few months and I need my body to be in peak condition so I don’t hurt this baby as I did my first born (he’s fine now, but had a rough start to life).

I need to remember that getting away from easy is what put me on this path, I need to keep moving.