ITSAPROCESS

In the past, I've taken my health sort of kind of seriously. I've tried to eat well, but it's hard. I don't have a very hard and fast schedule, I'm frequently on the move, and I'm embarrassed to admit that some nights my dinner resorts to kitkats. As a diabetic, I take pretty poor care of myself as well. It frightens me to no end. But it shouldn't, as this is all under my control. It's really not anybody else's fault how I take care of my body or how I treat myself. It's my own responsibility. As an adult, it's slowly becoming entirely my responsibility. I've been weening my parents off of the control over the entire course of my diabetic life, but I think I forgot in the process that that gave me more control and more responsibility.

I've tried in the past to eat better, but I don't think I ever committed to a long term goal. It was always because I randomly wanted to lose 5 pounds, completely unnecessarily. Over the summer I actually went to the food pyramid website and came up with a solid meal plan, and that worked for a little while. But it got really hard and a little expensive, and eventually stress derailed me.

Stress always derails me.

I get so afraid of failure that I stop trying. Which, I know, is basically the same thing, but psychologically I've got that confused.

They say it takes 2 weeks to build a habit, right? And they say a habit sticks better when it's written down. I'm not expecting anybody who reads this to hold me to any of this, and in fact, please don't. It's so psychologically counter-productive to my goals. It's weird I know but I have a frustrating sort of brain like that.

Starting Sunday, but practicing starting tomorrow, I'm going to have these goals:

1. For two weeks, I'll just focus on my eating. I'll follow a meal plan that will allow for my cafeteria trying really hard to throw me off. I want to lower my cholesterol and feel a lot better about how I eat. I put this before focusing on diabetes because better eating habits will lead to better control of my diabetes.

2. For another two weeks, I'll focus on my diabetes. By that time, the bruises on my stomach from the CGM should be cleared up, so I can use it again. Don't get me started on this stupid thing, I could literally go on for hours about how something so useful could be so unusable. My overall goal will be to get my A1C below 8. I know that might be shocking that it's NOT, but look, it's been a rough past like...forever. Diabetes has psychologically taken its toll on me and for the most part my way of dealing with it has been to ignore it. I can't do that forever, I know that. It's really time for me to grow up.

3. For the final two weeks, I'll start focusing on getting regular exercise in. Exercise usually throws my diabetes off and makes everything difficult, that's why I put this at the end. If exercising makes things difficult this time around, I will not focus on it some, and instead try to find a regimen that works for me and my needs, not miserably force my diabetes to work for my exercise. That has never worked.

At that point it will be Christmas and my main focus is going to be on keeping my pattern regular. I think at first it will be stressful, but in the long run I will have less stress as I stop worrying about how much I'm not taking care of myself.

I think I'm really motivated because I really changed my study habits for the better this semester. I was doing awful last year, but this year my time management skills are unbelievable, and I kept it up long-term, and I think I can use that confidence and ability to channel my health into something good. I feel really good about this.

I really don't want to blog about this regularly because that feels so amazingly cheesy and stupid. I'm mostly putting it here to keep myself honest.

Like Kanye always says: #ITSAPROCESS