Has anyone seen my motivation?

Bueller? Bueller?

I did ONE. Just one, TMT dvd yesterday (abs) and haven't/can't seem to muster the energy, motivation, chutzpah, balls - whatever - to do anything today. I know it's *that week* again. That week where I get a tension head and neck ache every day. I bloat up and crave Big Macs and ice cream. That week during which I'm so physically exhausted that even going upstairs seems a herculean task. This is the week I need to be exercising the most. Not the most as in quantity. The most, as in, this is when it would most benefit me. On the one hand I can't beat myself up over this too much and make exercise this punitive "you HAVE TO" thing. On the other hand I can't let myself make excuses. I will let it go for today. I got almost no sleep last night and didn't really get to nap today. Tomorrow I have to hang over for 2 hours in the morning after my night shift; this is getting to be a common and annoying thing. It seems to set my day back quite a bit when I do this. I can't make any promises for tomorrow either, not knowing how my night is going to be tonight, except that I am going to make the effort to get at least one dvd done as soon as I get home, and hope that one leads to two, leads to maybe three and maybe a run or a nice walk later in the day. I recognize my mad procratinational skillz (I'm using them right now, matter of fact), and I know the longer I go without doing something, the longer I will tend to keep going, if that makes sense.

Thank goodness at least I've gotten straight back into my routine with what I'm eating. Back to eating quality foods and small portions, and waiting until I am truly hungry to eat. Sounds like that would be easy to do, wait until you're hungry to eat, huh? For lots of people it is. Dan amazes me. Lots of his eating habits aren't healthy (a Coke for breakfast and "lunch" at 7:30pm, little snack of some processed food before bed). Some of his habits, though, astound me, in how foreign they are to the way that I'm used to handling meals. He can, and often does, wait until he is extremely hungry to eat. It just doesn't cross his mind until his stomach begins to digest itself. Sometimes it's evening before he thinks of grabbing something. I cannot fathom that. I can finish an enormous steak dinner with a baked potato and veggies, have a brownie topped with ice cream, and I still catch myself thinking, "Ok, what's next?" Then, when he finally does eat, he often leaves 1/3 of his meal sitting there, uneaten. He has such strong internal cues as to when he's done. On the other hand, that is something I have to work very hard at. "Am I satisfied? Am I past satisfied and just eating because it's there?" These are questions he doesn't have to ask himself. Recognizing my internal cues, as opposed using external cues, is something I need to work harder on. One technique I had been using is cooking or serving myself a much smaller portion than I would normally eat, and not having seconds, unless the seconds consist only of a second helping of salad. This works, until the portion creep begins. Next food-related goal is going to be to really, really pay attention to internal cues telling me "I'm satisfied" and to be ok with leaving food on my plate.

For me, that is akin to learning to walk on a tightrope or something similarly foreign and scary. Weird, huh?