The most difficult challenge yet

When I began this project, I was full of tiger blood. I was 10 days into a Whole30 challenge, and felt energy like I'd never known before. I wanted to keep it going, keep up the feeling, keep challenging myself to change, improve, feel better.

It's a few month later now, and I don't feel particularly better. I feel kinda crappy, TBH.

The Whole30 was pretty successful. I didn't make it a full 30 days, but I did drastically change my eating habits for over 3 weeks, and I experienced hugely beneficial changes to my body & my mental state.

The next month, I did yoga every day, with very few exceptions. Sometimes it sucked, but for the most part, I was really happy with the results.

December, I faltered. Instead of one big exciting goal, I gave myself little things to change. And some of them I actually did! I'm still not using a towel to dry my hair, and I'm seeing the breakage around my hairline slow down. I'm also no longer washing my face in the shower, and my skin looks perhaps a bit clearer. So, it wasn't a wasted month. But it FELT wasted. After two months of being healthier & happier, jumping into December, the stress of the holidays, the money spent, the ugly consumerism, and missing Andrew sorely during our two and a half week separation, the little things I was doing to improve my appearance felt silly, small and woefully unable to handle the talk of improving myself.

And there it is. A big problem in the middle of these big challenges. I don't want to just improve my health, or my appearance, or any small part of me. I want to improve my SELF. The stuff that makes up "me"-- well, I've examined it and found it lacking. And I'm trying to tweak it, through challenges, to improve upon it. To make it worthy of love, of a wedding, of a happily ever after.

But... what if I'm already worthy of that? What if I don't need to change myself in order to like myself? Or, what if I do need to change one thing, and that's the way I treat myself. The way I look at myself and judge myself. Accepting myself for who I am, and treating myself with love might be the biggest challenge of all.

But I think it's a pretty good one.

Oh, bother

Well, it's January! A traditional time for diets, exercise, new year, new you-ing. Based on my previous self-improvement kick, you'd think I'd be very gung ho.

I'm more like gung NO.

I feel so tired, lazy and unmotivated. The Christmas weight I gained is laughing at me, daring me to try and lose it. At work I'm lethargic and unmotivated. I'm finding excuses not to exercise. And food? Well, last night was a burger, beer and ice cream.

I am f-ing winning 2015.

Obviously something needs to change. My goal for January was to do my core exercises daily to strengthen my back. Somehow this goal seems like both too little and far too much. Too little, because I want something that will kick start my motivation, my weight loss, my energy & excitement. Ten minutes of clam & bridge poses doesn't really fit the bill.

But it also seems like too much because, well, EVERYTHING seems like too much. I think it's just a bit of post-holiday ennui, but the smallest tasks feel pretty insurmountable these days. Mountains are molehills.

So here is where I stand. At the beginning stages of January, unsure of how to proceed. Start the Whole 30 again? Recommit to the 80/20 program (something I never figured out)? Try to simply focus on moderation? I'm not sure if I know how to do that.

Now I am nearing the end of this blog... and I'm not closer to knowing what to do.

Let's see what tomorrow brings!