Chocolate topping and hindsight

Wow, revisiting my most popular post to date... and discovering it was written at what was a very high point in terms of focus.  So much has changed since then, particularly in the 2 months since Bruce and the E Street Band left the country....

Here's the original post:

Thursday, July 11, 2013Negativity - cured by an Attitude of Gratitude!
Sometimes, despite the best intentions, life fills up with it. Negativity. Maybe that's just *my* life, I don't know. I'm only living mine, so I've got no way to know if its me in particular.
Right now for instance, despite being extremely grateful earlier, and looking on the bright side, I find myself not only frustrated, but angry.
Because I'm fed up with blogging and still managing to get lost and feel like I'm making no progress, I'm going to go over the gratitude exercise again.
Tonight I'm grateful for the nap I had earlier, it was pleasant. I'm grateful for my Brucebud, Maggie, who understands.  I'm grateful for the time to write birthday invitations, and that I can let go of the perfectionist in me and make do with what I have designed. I'm grateful to the phone repairer who fixed my broken phone. I'm grateful to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band for the inspiration to move, to make no excuses and to get out there and be fit. I've lost 13 kgs and that will never come back, because I'll never make excuses for myself like that again.  I might even get within 5kgs of my goal weight for my birthday of 80kgs! 
I'm grateful for just now remembering to drink water, as it will help make tomorrow a better day. I'm grateful to music, that I'm just about to listen to, while I drink some water, and marvel at how easy it is to turn around a very bad mood and attitude into a relatively pleasant mood and very good attitude.
It seems it is impossible to be angry and grateful at the same time. It seems that when your heart and mind is filled with gratitude, those things and people who make you mad don't matter one zot. 
Which is fine by me!Posted by Kat Smith at 1:39 AM 

I am interested to see that even though at the time I felt thwarted, I can see with hindsight that the feeling was perhaps just the hunger for doing more, doing better that was lighting the fire keeping me going, always losing weight, always eating better, sticking to my goals. Or perhaps it was indeed when things started to unravel for me, as I remember feeling a sense of stagnation that started in July last year.

Despite backsliding with the weight loss considerably, the interesting thing is that now I am beginning to tackle some of my life's bigger problems and big decisions. We've left the too-expensive private school, I've moved Dad into a care home closer to where I live, huge life changes are going on.  Having gained 5 kg in this time is a big deal, but perhaps merely a side effect of my not yet having learnt to juggle significant upheaval in my new routine.  When I reflect on my past efforts at fitness, I do tend to achieve a measure of what should be (according to experts) life time habit and increased fitness....and then maintaining or improving further on that is where I come unstuck. I have done this many times in the past, in many different life situations....so for me the trick is going to be keeping that fire lit under my arse that says "get moving" through all kinds of different circumstances.  Certainly the neck injury in November wiped out my walking, however now I have recurrent pain from that without walking, so I might as well keep up the walking and at least get the exercise and endorphins from doing the beneficial things!

Or as Dory would say:

Swimming in my case involves blogging, being grateful, exercising and eating sensibly. Pretty much everything else at the moment is chocolate topping. I have perhaps spent too much time in chocolate topping. There was some gratifying parts to that experience (the chocolate topping of doing 'all the other things' like the Bruce tour, moving Dad, etc) however overall it has made me feel kind of fat and sticky!