I love being alive

I haven't lost any weight. I've exercised one day this month (the first day OF the month). I'm not making healthy food choices 80% of the time. I'm not treating my body right. I'm not treating my family right. I'm not treating my friends right. I'm not treating myself right.

I've had a couple moments in the last few days where I've just stopped, looked up at the blue sky, felt the warm fall breeze, watched the leaves swirling down from the trees and thought - I love being alive. But I don't want to live the way I do. I don't want to be bitter and fat and tired and grouchy and unmotivated and messy. I have so many goals and aspirations and people that I love - and I want to really LIVE, not just exist.

I think of Patty, my aunt who died at a very young age last December, and how she's never going to enjoy the simplicity of a sunny day again. She's never going to feel her heart swell with the happiness of just existing. And that breaks my heart, but also gives me the determination to not follow a path of self-destruction. She deserved more than what she got out of life, even though she was happy most of the time. She deserved a longer life. I deserve a long life, a healthy life, a life I can be proud of, and not one in which I'm constantly making myself mad at myself because I'm fat/lazy/grouchy/tired/etc/etc.

I owe it to myself to love myself enough to change.

changes

I've definitely been going through a stressful time these past few weeks, and my diet has shown that. I've been eating like crap, feeling like crap, and have had an upset stomach almost constantly. I rejoined Weight Watchers for one meeting, re-quit (totally not a word...) Weight Watchers after said meeting and am back at square one.

I just don't know that Weight Watchers is it for me. I think it's a great program and it helped me immensely in the past, but I don't really feel comfortable at meetings and I hate to spend so much money on them. I don't know. I'm ready to give this another shot, to give ME a shot. I have to do this. My own way. I have to change. I'm 21, but I'm not living my life. I'm going through the motions and stagnating, watching everyone else with jealousy that I'm not the person I want to be. I have to do this to help my family, too. We're all so unhealthy, even my poor dog who's suffering with a back issue right now (if anyone reads this, please, please send some prayers/good thoughts her way), and it's a direct result of the way we live our lives. There's no discipline.

So that's my goal for this week. Get some discipline. Stick to my plans, not obsessively, but as much as possible. These are my discipline goals:

- Go to bed at 11pm.
- Get up at 9am.
- Walk one mile on the treadmill at least 3/7 days.