It’s 6:45 AM. The store doesn’t open until 7, but I can’t afford to wait.
I dialed the number, it rang, but I wasn’t expecting anyone to pick up on the other end. “Thank you for calling Stop and Shop,” the automated voice said, and I waited for the obligatory, “The store isn’t open yet you dummy, so call back later” message.
Instead the call was automatically transferred. It rang again once, and the voice of an angel picked up. “Customer service, this is Anna.”
After my initial surprise at hearing an actual, live voice on the other end, I quickly remembered the reason for my call. “Hello, Anna. I was in the store last night and somewhere in between getting out of my car and the time I got home, I lost my wallet and....”
She didn’t even let me finish. “Scott?” she asked.
It was pretty much the best feeling in the world.
It’s the kind of feeling that makes you wonder if this might be the news I needed to turn a corner. I have had a rough couple of weeks and have been finding it hard to get motivated lately. I know the subtle signs that I am starting to lose focus: When someone in the office buys boxes of donuts and I eat one…. And then an hour later sneak another. When I bring lunch to work and eat it at 11am, then get invited to a lunch meeting at 12:30 and eat lunch again because it’s free and available. When someone brings in leftover Easter candy and I can’t stop snagging a Reese’s Peanut Butter egg every time I walk by.
Last Friday I went to New York for the weekend and purposely left my exercise journal in the car. I didn’t want to monitor my calorie deficit during these days – I knew it would be bad, so I didn’t journal Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday – the only days I have failed to journal this year.
Cookie Dough Dip.
On Sunday I ate cookie dough dip.
What is cookie dough dip? Well, it’s probably exactly what you think it is. It’s a half of a nerf-football sized mound of cookie dough that you dip graham crackers in. I didn’t have to eat it. I wanted to eat it. So I did.
When I got home Monday, I started writing a blog post about “drawing a line, starting over, and hoping it sticks.” That is typically my philosophy when I get in a rut. Often times it’s just so easy to give up. You work hard to drop 3-4 pounds and then in a few weak days you put it right back on again. What’s the point?
Well… the point is that unless you stop the bad behavior and get yourself back into a good groove, you are going to just continue to slip backwards. All that will do will make the inevitable climb that much harder. So, draw a line, start over, and hope that it sticks.
Unfortunately for me, the only thing that was sticking was the cookie dough on the roof of my mouth.
It’s easy to draw the line. It’s easy to say that you’re starting over. It’s another thing to actually follow through. Over the past week, I have written two blog posts discussing this theory, but every time I thought about publishing it I felt like a fraud. I knew I hadn’t recommitted fully to training and diet yet, so how could I say that I was?
Draw a line, start over, see if it sticks.
Donuts.
Draw a line, start over, see if it sticks.
Double-lunch.
Draw a line, start over, see if it sticks.
Reese’s Easter Eggs.
Draw a line, start over, see if it sticks.
Cookie dough dip.
WHEN DOES THE CYCLE END? The answer to that question is simple – it ends when it ends. It ends when you’re in the right frame of mind to retake control. In the meantime, acknowledging that you need to draw the line is probably about as much as you are going to accomplish, but still an important accomplishment at the time because when you don’t acknowledge you have a motivation problem, things may really spiral out of control.
I got in my car this morning still hoping to find the wallet that I wasn’t yet completely sure was missing. Half-way to work I was beginning to accept this inevitability and that I might have to cancel all my cards and deal with the resulting hassle of recovering what was in there (except my Subway discount card… that would have been lost forever). Then I realized that I also forgot to wear a belt this morning. In the old days, this wouldn’t be such a big deal, but after losing 65 pounds, even the new pants I have purchased are too big and it was sure to make for a very uncomfortable day.
At least… until Anna, my angel, picked up the phone and I went off to pick up my wallet.
I drove home and grabbed a belt. Another problem solved. Then I went and retrieved my wallet. I offered Anna fifty bucks to give to the cashier who found it, but she wouldn’t accept it. I asked her to buy pizza for the staff and she refused. “I can’t accept that,” she said. “If you want to do something, pay it forward.”
“Ok,” I said, and bought fifty bucks in scratch tickets instead.
Well, I might have done that yesterday, but this moment seemed like a tidal shift in my luck. Just this morning I was still in a cookie dough food coma with a lost wallet and pants that needed constant attention lest they fall to my ankles. Now I had recovered the wallet, which now contained fifty bucks more than I expected and was nestled securely in the back pocket of comfortably-fitting pants.
Finally I got back to work and pulled out the exercise journal. I drew a line. It’s time to start over... again. Let’s see if this time it sticks.
No comments:
Post a Comment