So what gives?!  LOL.  The age old question, I suppose…  but why can’t I just be happy all the time?!?  Can I get a pill for that?  Kidding!  But seriously…  what is up with moods?

Like… I understand and accept that I will change moods.   That is fine, but I am having a really hard time accepting the severity and speed with which my moods change.  I can’t say with any certainty that there is anything new in these mood swings, or if they have always been there and I am just now paying them attention, but either way…  They need some work.  I noticed on Saturday, for example, that I was feeling great, went to get Kendra, spent time with her and most of my family, and was really happy.  Then, on the way home, I started to feel kinda down…  but nothing really major.

On Sunday, it was about the same, actually…  I woke pretty happy, had lunch with Kendra (Hey, this window is transparent!), and then went to Jozoara.  My mood changed between lunch and JoZoara, then got better again as I headed into Nashville for rehearsal.  I was pretty happy.  I was happy all the way until I got home…  Then I had dinner.  That’s it!!!

It is triggered by food.  Ah, I love blogging!!  For so long, I have been fat.  Yes, I know that there are fatter people out there, and yes, I know that being fat isn’t the worse thing in the world… anywho, moving on…  I have been fat.  And I have loathed myself for it.  I hated myself.  I feel like I should write in here that this is not about to be a “Woe is me – cry me a river – sad story.”  I am going somewhere with this.   Anywho…  because I hated myself, I continued to just be who I was because no matter what, I there was never anything I could do about it.  No matter what I would just be fat.  And I was internally so hard on myself.  I was so angry that I could not make the changes necessary to make a better me, and I was so mad at the world for placing so much emphasis on looks.  In the real world, or at least in my perception of the real world, fat people were not worthy of being loved, so I did not feel all the love that was around me every day.  Anywho, all that is to say that all of those feelings of neglect, abandonment, pity, anger, jealousy, and hate festered in me and grew so strong that I was no longer stable.  Anything would set me off.  Sure, I could control it for a while, but eventually, it all came up and came out.  Ask any of my friends… I can blow up like Mt. St. Helen’s.  (Btw, I still have all of these friends, so clearly the feelings of abandonment and neglect are irrational…  clearly I have never been alone, and I have always been loved!) Anyway, so how does all of that relate to how this bog started?!  Well…  it is a vivid truth that there is usually only one way to become fat (barring medical conditions) and that is to eat bad foods and stay sedentary.  So in my mind, those bad foods are a very real, tangible manifestation of those terrible emotions that have existed in me for SO long.  I have worked so hard to purge myself of all of this negativity that, emotionally, eating those bad foods is like I am eating neglect, abandonment, pity, anger, jealousy, and hate.  And when I eat them, I feel them…  and my mood changes!  Of course, what is wrong is my association of those foods to emotions, not the fact that I ate those foods.  There is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with having those foods as long as they are not your norm.  They have to be the exception.  (And they are so, so yummy!)

I have never really understood the importance of a “cheat” day until this moment.  It is not about the food!  It is about allowing me freedom.  Freedom to understand that I am not perfect, that I am going to do things that are not healthy.  And you know what?!  All of that is perfectly ok!!!  I am not going to magically gain back the 43 lbs that I have already lost because I had one bad day!  The important thing here is that I have committed to a lifestyle of health, and in that health is not only nutrition and exercise.  It is in the mind. I know that if I can lose 43 pounds in 18 weeks, and if I can maintain a 2-per-week gym routine, and now jog 2 miles when I could barely walk up more than 3 flights of stairs, then I can have one bad day a week without feeling bad about it.

I cannot continue eating yesterday’s hate, in doing so, I will never be able to enjoy today’s love.

-=brett=-