The little engine

Marathon training is going quite well so far. I've adopted a realistic and flexible approach that appears to be a good fit for me. I was exhausted and really sore on Tuesday morning from doing Hot Yoga on Sunday, so I turned my alarm off and slept in. I didn't beat myself up. I had the confidence and belief in myself that I would adapt my schedule accordingly. I was supposed to run 5 miles on Tuesday. This morning, despite having difficulty running on treadmills, particularly in the morning, I got up, ate a little extra and gave myself 30 minutes of extra time to digest, and killed it. 5 miles, in the books. On a treadmill no less (it was pouring outside). Yay for that.

This calm demeanor and confidence in myself that I will follow through with exercise is new, and obviously, I'm a fan.

It was just over a year and a half ago, when my anxiety about completing a workout could totally overwhelm me. I would ride the train home and upon stepping in to my apartment, it was like this strange game that I would play, waiting to see if I would actually follow through and go to my running group. In those moments, I felt very little sense of agency over my decisions, and in moments of anxiety, in addition to self-criticism to try to motivate myself, I would think, "I wonder if I'll actually get out the door this time?" like I was contemplating the events in a movie plot I was watching.  Sometimes I would push through and go anyways, and other times, I would stay in, probably eat cookies, and berate myself. Good times.

I attribute my recently found calm to continued practice, and reduced self-critical talk. In college, I rarely ran or did any exercise consistently, with exceptions where I was committed to doing so (pom team practices, tennis class). This was not for lack of desire to exercise, nor lack of trying, but other things in my life came first and exercise never became a consistent commitment. After college, things changed. I began running with others, then moved to Philly and joined the running group, and I attribute most of my confidence in my ability to get out the door to the group, at first. When I got to Chicago, the anxiety returned because now I had only myself to be accountable to. 

Two years later, here I am. I marvel at this change mostly to try to figure out how the heck to apply it to my eating behavior in a consistent manner. As my last post reflects, I'm struggling again and took a break from focus on eating to get marathon training under control. Subsequently, my eating has normalized and I'm not stress eating, but I'm also not losing weight. 

Currently, my thoughts and beliefs about eating are like they used to be for my exercise behavior: I am not feeling confident that I know how to consistently follow through on my goal of weight loss, nor am I sure its a reasonable or realistic goal, especially during training.

As a budding psychologist, I essentially know the answer to my own question of how to I apply my confidence in exercise to my confidence in eating and its actually quite simple. It all boils down to belief. Belief in oneself that I actually can do it, setting myself up with a reasonable plan, being flexible, and then proving myself right, over and over, until the questioning is reduced to only a slight whisper.


For now, I choose to focus on what is going well, my marathon training, and not on the fact that I haven't totally figured out a workable long-term plan for finding ease and comfort with my weight and eating behavior.

In the meantime, I pledge to focus more on believing in myself and my abilities, because I know the more I do that, the more I will be right.