Fears

So having been down this weight loss road before I keep having the same thought run through my head over and over, "When am I going to give up on myself again?" I think about it all the time. I am so afraid that I will just stop eating well and running and inevitably gain all the weight back again. I am constantly reminding myself that this time around is like nothing I have ever done before. Here is why: (Who doesn't love lists about me?)

• I took up running before even trying to change much about my eating habits.
• I have managed to make myself run about 3 times per week for almost 6 months now. They say creating a new habit takes 21 days, so it is a solid habit by now. I hope.
• I have made truly livable changes to my eating habits. 
• I honestly don't believe that I am dieting. I know everyone always says all the crazy stuff about it's not a diet, it's a life change. I have always known that, but never really understood and I honestly didn't put it into practice. The only other time I have lost substantial weight I ate really light meals and snacked on diet snacks. I think I thought I could honestly eat light meals and crappy snacks forever. This time I some how found myself eating real meals and in turn not really wanting snacks. When I do snack I am fine with yogurt or tea. I do have an occasional unhealthy snack, but I am fine with one serving, otherwise that snack is taken out of our house. 
• I am loving the challenge of running and the thought of increasing miles and potentially running a marathon one day. I have never thought I would run, but I enjoy it some times and love that I can challenge myself each time.
• When I have a relapse into old me, I can jump right back into healthy living. There have been so many times previous to this that we would go away for the weekend and I would just let myself eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to. Then I would not be able to get back into "dieting" again when we got home or even worse I would realize we were going away the following weekend too 'so why even try now.' This summer we traveled/had family visit us every. single. weekend. from Memorial Day to Labor Day. I usually at least tried to keep 2 meals lighter and sometimes usually went overboard on one meal. I ran on most of the weekends as well. When we came home I would easily jump right back into my healthy lifestyle. I remember one portion of the summer we went camping for a long weekend and had maybe 2 days before we left again. Even though I had not eaten very wisely while camping I still ate well for the 2 days at home. I know that before this I would have used those 2 days to eat everything and just try to get back into "dieting" after the next trip. In those 2 days I felt changed.

The one thing though that has been worrying me is that it's getting colder here. I live in Michigan and winters can be rough here. I keep telling myself that I will run until it snows and then figure out what I can do. Well, something good may have just fallen into our laps. Yesterday the hubby's brother asked him if he wanted his old treadmill. Hubby's brother always has really nice things and takes really good care of his things so it's probably a decent one and definitely well treated. The hubby said he would take it so this weekend we are most likely getting a treadmill! I am so excited.

Even just with the weather cooling down to the 60s this week, running has gotten harder. I am fine running in 60* weather, but the mornings are way to cold to make little lady run with me. By the time it heats up outside, it is little lady's nap time and when she wakes up it's almost time to make dinner. Today I was going to get my 3 miles in right before her nap, but our errands took longer than expected so by the time we got home there wasn't enough time to run. Thankfully the hubs said he would watch her this evening while I run.

I am fine with running later in the day when hubby is home with little lady, but once it's winter it starts to get dark around 5pm and just don't feel safe running in the dark. I was starting to stress about what I would do for running in the winter and am hopeful this treadmill will work out for us.