June 19, 2013

I woke up this morning with my soul in as dark a place as the ink-black, pre-dawn sky. I worked so very hard from July of 2012 to January of 2012 to lose 95 pounds. Through anger eating, grief eating, and stress eating, I have put back a number of the pounds that I had lost. My clothes fit more tightly, my enthusiasm and motivation waned, and my vision of a healthy, productive and long future with my wife and sons blurred. A three day out-of-town business trip awaits, with work packed tightly around other professional obligations that I must discharge between now and Friday night. Eating on the road. Eating while busy with work. Eating under the stress of committee meetings, a speech, and motions, orders and briefs that need to be drafted in- between. My food-based near past has been bleak and my food-based near future appeared to be bleaker.

Who am I to think that I can break the icy death grip that food has on me? What made me think that I could succeed where so many others have failed? I'd come so far, only to fall back so far. What real hope was there that I would experience the taunting dual fantasies of physical fitness and skinny jeans?

Then, out of the corner of my eye, something caught my attention. I turned to the back door of my house and peered through the double-paned insulated glass to the sky outside. The early morning sun was making herself known. She doesn't appear suddenly in an instant blaze of light, heat, power and radiation. At first, she gently nudges the veil of darkness that envelops morning. Charcoal black turns to shades of purple, then blue, then red, then orange, then yellow, until the pure white of full morning sun returns the late-morning sky to its regal bright blue of daytime. And that is when I finally understood.

I cannot change five months of slovenly eating6 habits in one morning. But I can make one good eating choice at a time. And one good exercise choice at a time. And if I do, I can turn my personal eating sky from ink black to brilliant blue.

Yes, I've had some successes. Yes, I've experienced failures. But as I tell my son repeatedly, "nothing you did in your last at-bat can possibly affect the outcome of your next at-bat... unless you bring it into the batter's box yourself. Believe that you can achieve. Use the mechanics we've taught you, do the best you can, and have fun." Good words. Strong words. True words.

So here I sit. Listening to myself. Before Mrs.TFT and I hit the road in a bit, I will review my old message board posts and remember the things that gave me strength through those first 95 pounds. I will review the food diaries that will remind me of what has worked and what has not. Mostly, I will remember that the past cannot affect the present unless I allow it to do so. My memory of personal pride at taming my food monster will propel me forward. My sense of achievement of walking first a mile, then two, then three and four and five will spur me to walk again. My recognition that today is different than yesterday will give me the confidence to know that I can do this. I will do this. If I choose to do this. And I have.

Yes, I, TFT, screwed up eating-wise on March 19, 2013. And on April 7, 2013. And on May 23, 2013. And on June 4, 2013. But today is June 19, 2013. The TFT of days past is dead. I am older than he was. I am smarter than he was. I have the benefit of experiences and knowledge and successes and failures that he did not have. That is why the TFT of today, June 19, 2013, has the audacity, the timerity, the chutzpah, to declare that the TFT of June 19, 2013 is good enough, strong enough, smart enough and dedicated enough to succeed in taming his personal food monster, when the TFT of all of those other days was not. But first, where the hell did I put my phone charger?!?