Crash, Bang, Wallop

One from 4th of March

So last time I wrote an entry I was happy – top of the world.  This time – putting my rational head on – I should have no reason to be anything other than happy, either.  From the fitness and weight perspective I’m heading in the desired direction. Here’s the thing though – I’m not.

I feel like I’ve come down from a massive high and suffering painful withdrawal symptoms that I can’t control.  I’ve had a look at my back entries, and it seems to be a recurring theme recently.  I’ve spent most of today wallowing in self-pity, for no particular reason. 

The other day,  had an appointment with my Life Insurance company, as I need to get my insurance set up – among the many questions asked, were the following:

Adviser: Do you suffer from any mental disability, e.g. depression, anxiety, etc.

Me: Answer – Yes. (easy, I’m brave enough to admit that, now)

Advisor: Ok, so I’m going to have to ask you some follow up questions to that.

Me: Fair enough

Advisor:  Have you ever had suicidal thoughts? When was the last time? And how often do you get these thoughts/feelings?

Me: …………… silence…………….

WTF!  I mean, I’ve just told you I suffer from depression and you ask me what has got to be one of the dumbest questions ever.  How exactly do you expect me to answer that?!  

Clearly people who put together these questions have no first hand experience of dealing with mental cases like me. 

Of course I’ve had suicidal thoughts.  I have suicidal thoughts almost as regularly as I have breakfast (which just so happens isn’t every day, but often enough).   Doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything about!  There’s also a huge difference between suicidal thoughts when your head is in a good space and I realise it’s just a little blip, something that randomly pops into your head because you’ve had a shitty day; versus those dreadful feelings that have you almost reaching for that bottle of pills, or contemplating that bridge in order to end the pain. 

I mean really.   It took me a better part of 10 minutes to collect myself, before I could proceed to explain to the girl on the end of the phone, what was going through my head, honestly enough to ensure I get the right cover, but not end up with a massive monthly premium, because the insurer anticipates that I might top myself at any moment.  I have no intention, desire or feelings geared towards that – at this moment in time.  Despite the few recent wobbles.

I guess that doesn’t take away from my feelings today.  Helpless, pathetic, crying.  I’ve ended up with one of those days were I sat on the sofa doing nothing – and I do mean literally nothing, just sat.  That’s not usually me – usually I have about 10 things on the go, watching TV, learning Chinese, whilst either crafting or painting or cooking.  I rarely sit doing nothing.  Today was a nothing day – a nothing day, like I’ve not had for a while.  Once again, I’m going to blame it on the current pandemic. 

So here it is – here is my crash, bang, wallop day.  Lets hope it’s the last in the current series.

Boogie Woogie again – the positive loop

You know when you get stuck in that dreadful negative loop – whatever the topic – and you can’t get out.  You know the one I mean – you feel sad, depressed, unhappy, unconfident cause you’re a little chubby; so, you eat to make yourself feel better.  It’s comfort eating.  But that means you gain more weight, so you feel more unhappy, and you reach for food.  Never ending circle.  Well – not always.  It is possible to snap out of it – as proved by yours truly, though it did take me a looooonnnnnng time to do it. And I mean years – when I think about my food habits.

Well, as turns out it is also possible to get stuck in a positive loop.  Perhaps describing it as ‘getting stuck’ is incongruent with this scenario.  Moving into a positive loop can be a good thing – is a good thing, no?  Maybe not always and not completely – after all too much of a good thing can be bad for you, right.

However, let’s for a few minutes focus on the beneficial side of getting stuck in a positive loop.  Here’s what I mean – my current example.  I lost a few a pounds of weight and few inches off my waist. As a result I feel great about myself – about the way I look and the way I feel.  The knock on effect of that being, that I’m more confident and happy, and energized to get off the sofa and shake that booty like it was my last day on earth.  The net effect of that being, I get my daily exercise and then some, continue to shed those grams heading towards my next weight goal, and those millimetres off my waist.   That makes me feel better about myself, I feel my energy is boosted, so I boogie again, shake that booty, snake those hips, pump out that chest, and twist those legs.   And so on, and so forth. 

I’ve recently fallen into that positive loop of activities.

I have to admit though – again, that I was a bit dubious about my ability to keep on trimming and slimming my waistline and my weight with doing just dance workouts, and dropping the HIIT sessions.  Those HIITs were so much hard work, the dance work-outs just don’t seem to have the same effect.  At least that’s been my impression on the surface.

After recovering my eating habits back to pre-Christmas routine, and pretty much dropping the HIITs, February has been all about the dance work-outs and splits training (still working on those).  Initially it’s been slow going – in fact, the whole thing stalled, not for the first time. 

As time moved on, my dancing increased, the happy feeling inside me grew, I started to see the weight shift on the scales.  Just like before, few grams at a time – few steps forward, few steps back, few steps on the spot, but overall, down, down and down.  Then the other day I took out my measure and twisted that thing around my waist. It’s been a while.   And……….. I’ve lost another 1 cm off my waist.  It may not seem like much to some – but have you read my Recap post.  Those insignificant millimetres initially, have added up to nearly 10cm off my waist and drop in dress-size.  So I will take every single one of these millimetres.  (in fact a little confession – the recent inches lost is just one part of it.  At my chubbiest, my waist was a nice round 100cm!!!) 

So there it is – a positive loop, a happy loop of activities that is keeping me trim, toned and what’s most important, keeping me training, moving, exercise, eating well and above all…………..happy, actually confident, less self-conscious about my body.  I like this positive loop.  It’s like the yin to the yang. 

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