Who Said Uphill Was the Hardest Part?

The last year has been a time of tremendous growth to me. I started working out, I took my writing more seriously, and I took a serious look at my life and decided to make a few changes. You know what? It was remarkably easy to start. I got my crap together and just took off running.

Work out three to four times a week. Check!

Learn to control what I eat, while not going nutty. Check!

Continue to write creatively so that I can keep in practice. Check!

Drag out the novel and keep working on it. Check!

Grow as a strong person while discovering what I want in life. Check!

Okay, time to take inventory: I lost 25 pounds, managed to rewrite four chapters in my novel, and feel more confident with my decisions in my life. Even when I was sick, I pushed through. When I was tired, I forced myself to do it. When I had to take a break – I hopped right back into the first chance I got. You just couldn’t stop me. I was a machine! And as long as I just kept it up, I’d be okay. Getting up the hill and over is the hardest part. Right?

WRONG! Uphill isn’t necessarily the hardest part. It’s the PLATEAU you hit when you get up there!

The last months have been an agonizing regression for me. ARRRRRRRGH! I can’t help but feel so disappointed with it all. And if I look back far enough, I can see where I tried to save myself, but I don’t know how to right the ship again! It’s a little frustrating. The gusto I had last year still lives inside me – but it feels like it’s locked away. For whatever reason, I’m just not motivated.

I started floundering in February. I realized that I felt like I was forcing myself to go to the gym. I just didn’t want to be there anymore and I was doing my workout half-assed. But, I had anticipated this. So I switched it up. I started doing Pilates at home two or three times a week. Coupled with my ballroom dance classes, I figured I had my exercise covered. And then things started going haywire. Work was keeping me busier than normal. I’d come home just exhausted. Figured it was my body saying “rest.”

I’m active – but not like I used to be. Now I’m really afraid because dance classes are over for the summer and I’m trying to figure out how to kick my ass back into gear. I think part of the reason I’ve lost the drive is the fact that I’m not seeing the results I want to see. Everyone is happy I lost 25 pounds and I’m doing it “the right way,” but I’m freakin’ going nuts because I haven’t dropped sizes yet. There’s nothing wrong with me medically and for the amount of exercise I was doing and the amount of food I’ve cut down to, I feel like I should be seeing more of a change.

I wasn’t feeling better and I wasn’t looking better – so my mind started asking, “Why the hell am I hitting my head up against the wall if NONE OF THIS IS WORKING?!?!!?”

So now it’s June and I haven’t even done half the effort of what I used to do. I feel like I’m going nowhere if I do it and I feel like I’m going nowhere if I don’t do it. I think my diet has kept me where I am, but I miss the desire I had. I miss hitting that treadmill/elliptical trainer and DARING it to defeat my will.

It’s just so frustrating because it seems like it’s leaping into other things in my life. When I write, it’s like the ideas are harder to come by. I refuse to believe that I’ve run out of ideas to write about…but I’ve hit this rough patch. My novel? Still holding the rewrite at four chapters. And I am thoroughly appalled at myself for becoming such a homebody lately! Lenny had to pry me out of the house this weekend.

I thought the flat part was supposed to be easy! Once you get through all those old fears and self-hate, you should be able to chug along. At least that’s what I see in everyone else’s situation. I read about the guy who lost 30 pounds in one month thanks to some fad diet. There’s the homemaker from Anywhere, U.S.A who thought up an idea one day and is now a self-made success. I’m surrounded by all these stories and I wonder, “Well dammit…why isn’t it happening to me yet?!” I think I worked just as hard and have been just as faithful to the dream. I’m not asking for super stardom or instant success. I just want to finish my little book and fit into a size 16 before the next millennia.

But where’s my happily ever after? Am I the only one who feels this way?

I need to push through the plateau and fast. What I’m currently doing is going through the motions and it SUCKS. I don’t want to waste what I’ve started – but I’ve got to find the excitement to do it again. I’m slogging through and barely making it and it’s not fair to me if I keep that up. But I could really use some help…I just have to find it.

All I know is that I need to find a hill…pronto!