Hi, my name is Rock

As I get further and further into this thing, I'm realizing that I must have been a rock in a previous life. When I think of my perfect day, it involves sitting on the beach, a great dinner (with some sort of gout-causing dessert), and maybe a glass of wine while listening to music. Notice that in no part of my day does moving around quickly play a factor. Even in my "ok" daydream I don't imagine myself breaking a sweat jogging on the beach or playing a stimulating game of tennis. I could maybe accept a walk in a European city, but that doesn't count because I'd be going slow since I was touring a new place. Hello, my name is Rock.

The first couple weeks went well - I kept workout dates, ate healthy, and drank my water bottle at work despite having to use 5 minutes of my 25 minute lunch break to find a clean, hair-free bathroom - and that's not even counting the time it took to microwave my lunch since my bathroom break ensured me last place in the "nuking food" line. I didn't even let myself get annoyed that I had a constant need to go due to my new H2O intake.

Then came Week 3 and all the catch-up work from the students' week-long vacay due to snow day. I'm stressed out and jonesing for chocolate like a crack addict. The secretary announced doughnuts in the conference room and I broke out in a cold sweat and walked by 3 times unnecessarily just to watch people eat the little puffs of sticky icing heaven that I knew would secretly make my life that day better. To make matters worse, over the next three weeks I'm going to be majorly busy with work, which usually means I come up with every excuse imaginable to skip the gym and work the couch. Why can't I be one of those naturally active people that can smugly smile while saying, "My body just feels weird if I don't get in a good workout," or "I already had my breakfast, so I'm not hungry for a free donut"?

The gym has become this giant looming over me, creeping out from the corners of my guilty mind until I'm almost about to have the kind of meltdown that requires a nap and an aspirin. People keep telling me to "just get there" and it will be ok. Every time I hear that I want to scream a big "DUH!" in their direction and push them into something (which I know is not nice at all). "Just getting there" is the issue - if I could "just get there," I wouldn't be appeasing my guilty conscience by telling another person about my extreme lack of motivation. Granted, people are trying to be supportive and helpful, but it comes across like a too tight girdle - it's supportive, helpful, and rubs you raw. Though I consider myself a lover of truth, I love it in that angry hate way when it comes to my health.

In the meantime, I've been promising myself that this week will be better - I will be the more focused, driven, slightly-boarding-on-obsessive me that started out my journey. The guilt is driving me nuts; the pressure to perform after seeing my pictures in the paper is slightly consuming me, though not motivating enough for me to do something about it. I'm like a hamster melodramatically dying in front of the wheel of life, but I refuse to climb on it and spin. No matter how much I don't want to, I have to strip myself of my Rock identity and become Hi - my name is Healthy Me.