This has been a rough week. I think it has been the roughest week since I started. Sometimes life just sucks and when life sucks it seems like nothing can or will go right. It’s Sunday now and I feel like the worst of last week was over and maybe next week wont be so bad? Next week is going to be really busy with work and life but I am hopeful that it will not be as bad as last week. I just can’t handle another week like last week.

Last week my cravings were OUT OF CONTROL. All I wanted was chocolate and sandwiches. I think one day I ate two of my 30/10 bars in one day and then Wednesday I cracked and bought a Charleston Chew. It tasted so good but did nothing for my cravings. I really wanted to go back and buy the whole box of Chews and eat them all. Thursday a colleague brought me a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte not knowing what I am doing and I caved and drank it all. It was DELICIOUS. Thursday my grand plan of going home from work for lunch was blown up and I ordered Jimmy Johns for lunch because I could not leave the building. I had 30 copies of a 100 page document to make and could not leave the side of the copier in case it ran out of paper or toner or it decided to spit up paper. I worked 13 or 14 hours days that were total shit shows. Nothing at work seems to be going right and I never seem to be able to get through any To-Do list EVER. David had to cancel our session on Thursday and I was REALLY looking forward to meeting with him. My kitchen is still a disaster. My car’s engine lights kept coming on randomly and turns out I had a nail in my tire. See what I mean? When life sucks it SUCKS.

Every evening I did try to find something positive in the days of total disaster. Tuesday we had an awesome evening out with my family and I got the most bad-ass pair of custom bedazzled Seahawks boots from a friend. Wednesday I felt like I was making a positive impact as I introduced myself to 22 teachers whom I will guide through the Washington ProTeach process this year. Thursday my new standing desk arrived and it is AWESOME and a friend made me the most delicious on-plan meal at her house.  We had an awesome visit from Gradys family who visited from Oregon and today I am not doing a single work-related thing…I am going to sit on the couch with Grady and my parents and watch football. My fantasy team is also CRUSHING it again this week and I am relishing punishing my fantasy opponent 🙂

I am still having cravings and I have been REALLY hungry this week and weekend. When I eat lunch or dinner I feel full but I don’t. The addictions cravings are definitely back and I think it because I ate so much food last week that is off plan. I gave in too many times and that really screwed me. My cravings are just so off the charts…they are hard to battle. I saw this image on Facebook Friday night and for some reason it made me pause.

Most of the things I did last week did not get me to where I wanted to be the next day. My 30/10 check in on Thursday was good but it wasn’t. I was up 1.1 pounds. I had lost 1.1 pounds of fat and I was up in muscle but seeing that you are 1.1 pounds heavier is just so hard to take. It is so hard to break away from your weight number and focus on your fat numbers. Positive results are seeing the fat pounds go down and down and down and that is what is happening. Why can’t I be happy with that? I am getting smaller and I need new clothes but even that does not really make me happy. Is that my addiction talking? If it is how do I quiet that voice? How do I stay positive when my brain tells me it is not enough…that there is no progress being made?

So this week I am really going to make that image my mantra- is doing this or eating that going to be me closer to where I want to be tomorrow? I need to continue to think back to this and really use it to my advantage. I noticed the power of coming back to your intention last week in yoga. The teacher spend a full minute asking us to set our intention for our class that day. She asked us to set it and think about it for a whole minute as we stood in Tadasana. If we could not come up with an intention she offered that we use kindness as our intention that day during class. She asked us to think deeply about our intention and get tot he root of that intention….why did we choose what we did? My intention for that class was health. I was taking that class for my health. My intention is not to weigh 150 pounds. My intention is not to wear size 6 jeans. My intention is to become healthy…to live a long life. To be able to physically do everything that I want to do. I also want to be kind to myself. To give my body the time and space to be healthy and do everything that I command it to do. Throughout class I demanded that my brain go back to that intention when it got too hot or too hard or when my muscles were screaming or when my brain wanted to check out and relive the disasters of that day. The teacher also asked us to come back to our intentions when she saw people in class struggling. She stopped her “teaching” and asked us to come back to our intentions in the middle of poses or in between poses. I came back to my intention of health and kindness. I forced my brain to only think of those two things. And you know what? Class was “easier”…I was able to do all but one of the poses. I was able to go deeper and focus on the pose and my alignment. It was pretty awesome and it was an”ah-ha” moment for me. I have been practicing yoga for 5 years and never got the whole intention thing. But I got it that day. I am going to try to harness the power of intention every day. And if that does not work I am just going to fall back on my new strategy of life, authenticity. Being authentic has what has helped me get this far…I know it will help me get to the end of this journey.