Major Life Changes and Shaking things Off

It has been a rough few months.

Photo courtesy Lucius Beebe Memorial Library, CC-BY-NC-SA

In previous blog posts I mentioned that I have been succumbing to emotional eating recently due to stress with work.  Well, the stress has finally been resolved - - I have, at long last, found a new job.  I will be leaving the private practice of law and moving in-house with a leading packaged goods company next week.  My last day at the firm is Wednesday, and my first day at the new company is Thursday.  I know, what a slacker, taking an entire 8 hours off.  (!)

It has been a tough slog - - there is nothing worse than working at a place where you no longer want to be.  Once you decide that you want to work somewhere else, you want to go there immediately.  Not to mention that job hunting is super stressful, what with all the research and preparation, emotional ups and downs, and constant rejection.  And let us not forget the joy that is sending in resumes only to have them disappear into a black hole, without ever hearing a response.

Anyways, I was finally able to hand in my notice last week, and I now only have 3 days left to work at the old place.  It seemed initially like my last two weeks would take forever, but in reality, the time has just flown by.  Which is not so good because I have a bunch of files to finish off before I go.  Ah, the joys of responsible transitioning.

The biggest challenge for me from a health and fitness perspective this past week is the fact that I have been going out to goodbye lunches with coworkers every day.  It's tough to stay on track with my food plan when exposed to the sodium festival that is food service.

As if that were not enough, I have been hit with a flu and a cold in quick succession.  I am now in the stage of coughing whenever I try and exert myself, and general constant exhaustion.  Not fun.

But things are going to get better now that I am set up for the new job.  I am really looking forward to the new challenge, and cannot wait.  Only 5 more sleeps! 

In the spirit of moving forward and renewing my focus on my fitness, I am changing my weight loss tracker to reflect the weight left to go, rather than the weight lost.  It has been too easy for me to  rest on my laurels with that big number in the "pounds lost" column.  Now with my emotional eating backsliding I am back to having 48.5 pounds left to lose.  Now I just need to go back to first principles and stick to my plan that I know works.  I still have 3 more days of goodbye lunches to get through, but I am hoping that I will feel better tomorrow so that I can get back to my workouts.