What a Dick(ens)...

I think we all know Charles Dickens’ famous line “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”  That line is a perfect summation of the week I had.

This week I had an important relationship broken.   I confided a lot of personal information to someone, and that person betrayed my trust.  I won’t get into who it was (though people know him as my former health coach, whose first name can be found in the title of “Peter Pan”, and whose last name starts with “K” Fitness), but let’s just say that I told him things in private, and he passed them around like a joint in a dorm room at NYU. 

Needless to say, I was devastated, but I was also at a complete loss.  Having never been such a bad judge of character, my life has been filled with amazing friends, and a husband who is trusting, caring, and simply the best friend anyone could ask for.  I simply am not used to being screwed by someone within my immediate circle.  So, I had no defense against.

My first reaction was to act like a teenager whose parents have forbidden her to go to prom, so she retaliates by escaping through her bedroom window, shimming down the drain pipe, and then running off to prom to meet up with the guy who later that night will get her drunk and pregnant, just to show her parents whose in charge.  No, I have no plans to get pregnant (or drunk, actually), but my initial thought was to eat an entire cheese cake and chase it with a box or two of Girl Scout Cookies.

But then I thought about it: for the last 4 years I’ve been losing weight and keeping it off.  I’ve learned to fix my mood with a workout, a hug from my kids, an email to a distant friend.  I know that Girl Scout Cookies are delicious (and to whoever invented “Thin Mints”, you are an evil genius and I tip my hat to you), but eating a box won’t fix the trust that had been destroyed.

So, I had to come up with a new tactic.  I thought of a line my mom once said to me: “Living better is the best revenge.”  Now, since my dear mother has been divorced almost 40 years and is still a little bitter about it, I usually take her advice with a grain of salt.  This time, though, I think about her line, and decide she’s right.

For the last several weeks, I’ve been unable to run or workout intensely.  Though I’ve stayed within my goal weight range, I’ve been dancing dangerously close to the edge of it.  So, I decide that this week is the perfect time to take control.  Someone else betrayed my trust, so what better time than now to learn to trust myself. 

First, I worked on my food.  I’ve tracked my food for years, but I admit I’ve gotten lazy.  Weight Watchers uses points instead of calories, and fruit has a 0 point value, so I don’t always write it down.  This week, though, I did.  When I was hungry for a snack, I drank a glass of water first, and sometimes it did the trick.  If it didn’t, then I knew I was truly hungry and then chose an apple instead of a piece of chocolate.

Then I went after my fitness.  As the betrayer was the person who taught me all about resistance bands, I first looked at them with strong disdain.  But then I realized that was like getting stabbed and deciding that it was the fault of the knife and not the assailant.  So, I reworked my resistance band routine to include exercises from my cardio sculpt class that I take at the gym and absolutely love.  I also went back to that class for the first time since I hurt my foot back in early February.  And not that class was tough, but I took it two days ago and my abs still hurt just sitting here typing.

Friday morning I went to my Weight Watcher meeting and stepped on the scale.  The receptionist told me I was down 1.8 pounds.  I smiled for so long afterwards that my cheeks hurt.

I’ll be honest.  I learned a lot from the person who caused my week to be so tough.  I learned how to eat well and exercise.  But he had to completely screw me over for me to realize the one thing that he never taught me: trust myself.

This week was ridiculously hard.  My personal story was shared without my consent, and I spent part of the week feeling like I strutted down 5^th Avenue in Manhattan completely naked (I know lots of folks don’t mind that, but I’m a data analyst: we’re not that bold).  But I learned that I can trust myself and I know what I’m doing.  Like Dickens said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”