Change Begins With Me

I've been in a funk for the past two days.  Dwelling inside of my head; fixated on traumas, mistakes, embarrassments, and losses.  Having to battle depression is a tiresome war that I don't always win.  One of the things about it that I truly abhor is the negativity tsunami that washes over me during a significant bout.  It pulls me under and keeps me trapped in a swarm of bad thoughts and memories.  My mind attacks my integrity, confidence, self-esteem, and any hopefulness that I may have.  I try my hardest to not let it get the best of me, but when there is constant stress in my daily life it becomes extremely hard not to succumb to it.  I cry and feel overwhelmingly desolate and hopeless.  Why couldn't life be different?  How come my days and nights are filled with pain and sadness?  Obsessing over things that I can not change only feeds the depression, and today I was going to allow myself to be consumed by it. 

As I lay in bed submerged under the covers and browsing Pinterest to divert my mind to something else, I came across a pin for some exercises to do every day before you get into the shower.  One of the million things that I obsess over almost daily is my body.  I hate it.  I have gained weight over the past 10 years, most significantly over the past five years.  My eating habits weren't the best and being an emotional eater, I stuffed my depression and anxiety with food.  Then, for a period of time I was on Lyrica as a daily preventative medication for my migraines and I gained almost 30 pounds in a matter of a few short months.  Being overweight made me even more depressed which made me eat more.  I was fat and I hated everything about it.  At my heaviest, I was 210 pounds.  Trying to stick with an exercise regime was hard because I would almost certainly wind up with an exertion headache which would turn into a 2-day long migraine.  Then fibromyalgia came into my life and I just threw in the towel after that.  Who was I kidding?  There was no way I was going to lose the weight by just changing my diet, which I had by the way. 

As a result of my hospitalization back in November, I lost 20 pounds.  I have been able to keep it off for the most part but I still need to lose 20 more. When I saw that pin this morning I had an epiphany.  I may not be able to change my past but I can shape my future and my body.  The exercises were not hard at all and something that I can very easily do - 75 jumping jacks, 35 crunches, 15 pushups and plank for 55 seconds.  I'm going to challenge myself to do this every day and lose those 20 pounds by my birthday in July.  So, I got up out of the bed, pulled out my yoga mat and exercise ball and got started!  I made sure to stretch my entire body for at least 5 minutes.  I trimmed down the number of jumping jacks to 20 and did the plank for only 15 seconds, but I did it!  I feel so much better about myself already and that cloud of depression is clearing away.  I want and deserve to feel good about myself in every way, beginning with liking what I see in the mirror. ツ