Exercise...

"Food is the most widely abused anti anxiety drug in America, and exercise is the most potent, yet underutilized anti-depressant." - Bill Phillips

Oh my lord....can I just tell you how much I LOVE this quote? I came across it a few weeks ago when someone on Facebook put it up (I'm sorry that now, I can't remember who to give the credit to for finding this quote). When I read this, oh man....I just thought, 'HOW TRUE!'

Think about your worst day. Think about a day that was so horrible, it literally gives you chills to think about it and in fact, you would really rather NOT be reminded of it. Now, if you're someone like myself (or anyone else who admittedly has an "issue" with food) its more than likely that you abused food that day. You binged. You went straight for the junk food and never looked back. You packed your stomach so full that you felt like you might burst, but somewhere....within that sickeningly-full-stomach-feeling.....you found some sort of comfort. And THAT is where this quote comes from.

For some reason, most of us with a weight problem have been taught that 'food is medicine to cure all evils'. Are you sad? Eat! Are you happy? Eat! Are you anxious? Eat! Are you depressed? Eat! In essence, we have been taught 'Eat your emotions'. That idea of eating our emotions - instead of experiencing said emotions and dealing with them like others do - becomes engrained in 'who we are' and 'what we do'. Why do you think we've woken up one day to find ourselves at 200, 300, 400, 500 lbs?!?!?!?!

This entry is entitled "Exercise" because, for me, that has become the solution. I have changed my inner monologue from 'Eat! Eat! Eat!' to 'Run! Run! Run!". Now, I'm not saying you have run right out and become a serious marathon runner/athlete, but I am saying that you will get far more POSITIVE benefits from exercising than from looking to the bottom of a bag of Lays Potato Chips for solace. I used to be someone who thought going to the Gym was lame. I would see people jogging on the side of the road and I would think to myself, 'what a bunch of freaks'....when all along, I WAS THE FREAK! I was the one who was not normal. I was the one eating poor choices after poor choices and not being active and wondering why I wasn't happy with myself and the way that I felt and the way that I looked.

Sometimes we get all caught up in this twisted cycle of things. It goes like this: I feel bad, I eat some kind of junk food, I feel bad for eating the junk food, I feel bad about feeling bad for eating the junk and I wonder why I did it in the first place, so I run out and eat MORE junk food. And the cycle repeats and repeats and repeats. Not much unlike an actual drug or alcohol addict, eh? As I've said before, food is an addiction as well. But all it takes is ONE GOOD DECISION to break that downward spiral of events. I still have those days. I have those days where EVERYTHING that can go wrong, DOES and I turn to my old favorite junk food of choice. BUT, I make a mental vow to myself that it stops there. Sure, I might eat this cheeseburger and french fries, but after? I'm getting up and I'm going for a walk. And tomorrow? I'm going to make it a better day than it was today. I'm going to get up with the intention of "doing it right today". And its okay if I mess up. Why? Because this is life and thats how we learn. We fall down, we get bruised, we get back up, and we try again until we succeed. I'm here to tell you, THATS the REAL secret to weight loss. Refusing to give up. Refusing to accept the mediocre. Thats the only reason I'm sitting here at almost 100lbs lost.