I'm A Hazard To Myself

Don't let me get me, I'm my own worst enemy
It's bad when you annoy yourself 

               - Pink

In my neighborhood there is a 200 step incline with a half mile trail back down the little mountain. So I did that three times today, for 600 steps and then ran another mile around this field they have in the same area. Gotta give a shout out to the fitness culture around here.... The entire Denver metro area and surrounding counties are all just resplendent with different ways to work out, and every place I've ever been around here was clearly designed for walkability, always safe and well maintained side walks and often miles and miles of specific biking and walking trails. I've often wondered if I would have been able to maintain a weight loss if we hadn't moved here and the contrast coming from Arizona was and remains striking to me. Then again, in my family and in the culture at large, your weight is solely your responsibility and if you are fat, it is because you are a characteristically flawed person, and it has nothing to do with your environment, your genetics, your culture (familial or otherwise) or anything other than your lack of ability to put your fork down and your running shoes on. So I guess it's not all that surprising that I would find it shocking to live in a place that values infrastructure and public space as a way to encourage the health and fitness of its population. It's just not what I'm accustomed to. I come from a place where you are far more likely to get things thrown at you from moving vehicles when trying to exercise in public spaces than to get a thumbs up or a smile from fellow exercisers. So places like this exist, that's all I'm saying. 

Anyway, so I'm up to 12 miles this week and will probably do four uneventful miles tomorrow. That will put me to 36 for the month, so a good pace. 

I saw a thing on Facebook the other day that said "eat as if you love your body" and damned if I haven't been pondering this endlessly for the past few weeks. I've spent the past several years working on loving myself through food issues, and a lot of that involved recognizing that I am not a terrible person for eating a donut on the way home from work. I'm just a human being, who happened to need a donut that day to feel okay. A lot of it involved recognizing that all I can do is my best and sometimes my best involves allowing food to be the comfort that it inherently is to all human beings, even the ones who insist they always maintain the strictest of control over their weight. It involved a lot of thinking and analyzing and also a lot of trying to understand when to think and analyze and when to just say fuck it and let it go and let myself be. 

But it is undeniable that the sugar that is so comforting to me is hurting me. And I can't seem to figure out how to make the leap to understanding (in my head, my heart, and my body) that not eating sugar is the loving choice. I don't know how to convince a body and a heart that has been consistently comforted by such since birth that they must acquiesce to my head, which stores numbers like calories and grams of sugar and A1c readings. That such acquiescence is not a denial or a refusal to care for my heart and my soul, but a loving and gentle attempt to care for my body which houses all of it. 

I found myself today thinking these thoughts and picturing myself saying them to a counselor or a dietician and I laughed out loud. Their tools are so blunt, and so stupid. I know I would get nothing more than a blank look before they resumed their advice on brown rice instead of white, limit your alcohol intake, and take the stairs at work!!

So if anyone has any advice (on my actual problem, which doesn't actually involve a lack of knowledge on my part as to which rice to choose) feel free to share it, because it sure beats the hell or of me how to solve this fix I'm in. 

Here's a pic I pulled off of google of the little incline I did today. I also ran into a deer twice, but couldn't get a pic because my phone camera had all kinds of sweat condensation, which is also why I couldn't take my own pic of the stairs.