The Jelly Belly Wants What the Jelly Belly Wants

Since hitting my recent weight loss goal, I’ve been in a bit of slump.

Back when my husband was nomadic for 7 months, I kept telling myself how great it would be when my husband got back and that it would free up more of my time to exercise my life away.  Maybe not full on 5 am club Skinny Meg style freeing me up.  But I figured I'd at least feel less pulled in every direction.

Too bad that’s not what happened.  It’s been nice having my husband home.  Really nice.  Like above average cartwheels and rainbows nice.  There have been lovely dinners together at the kitchen table.  There have been bike rides and swimming.  There have been trips to the grocery store as a family to buy crap we don’t need.  And there has been lots of cramming ourselves in bed together to watch the Disney Channel until I want to gag. 

Why, yes, that is a grown man pushing a kiddie basket at the grocery store.  His daughter walked off with the full sized one.  What's a guy to do?

I like being there for that stuff.  That’s what I’m saying.  That it’s nice.  Really nice.  And fun.  And I missed that stuff while he was gone.  A lot.  Life is more fun as a foursome.  So I seem to struggle at heading downstairs to do my Wii like I would before he was nomadic.  I seem to struggle to head out the door at the crack of dawn instead of lounging around in pj’s with everyone else on Saturday.

But my husband also somehow convinced me that we were going to be workout buddies and he was going to run with me.  But he’s not a spring out of bed in the morning kind of guy.  So the springing has to come from me.  But I don’t want to spring without him because he says he wants to go and I want him to go if he wants to go but then sometimes he doesn’t seem to want to go but then sometimes I’m not sure if that’s just “slow to spring out of bed” slowness or “just go without me” slowness.  And “just go without me” slowness is really good at creeping over into “maybe I should just lay down and go back to sleep” laziness.  Because if I spend too much time thinking about whether or not I should go exercise, holy cow it’s easy to convince myself I don’t need to.

Sometimes my husband will tell me while tying his laces that he’s not running far that day even though I waited for him and even though he knows my goal on Tuesdays and Thursdays is going 3 miles.  It’s always 3 miles on those days.  That never varies.  Except for him.  Yesterday, we ran 1.9 miles.  Um.  Yeah, that’s better than when I couldn’t run anywhere last year.  But it’s not 3 miles. 

This girl doesn’t have blue steel biceps to burn a million calories all day for her.  She needs to work hard to burn them herself.  And this girl can’t just swing a 40 pound kettle bell around by one hand and call it a day.  Again, this girl needs little somethin' somethin' more. 

Other times we’ll be mid run and my husband will announce that we should just stop and do burpees instead of running the rest of the way.  Holy hell that man has drunk the burpee koolaid and loves him some burpees.   Too bad my ankles hate burpees with a passion.  Last time I did them, my ankles threatened to walk off the job if I didn’t cease and desist immediately.  This girl both ceased and desisted.  Because I like functioning ankles.     

So then I want to finish the planned run and he wants to burpee and I'm frustrated that my brain had set a course for running a certain distance but torn and he's frustrated I don't want to mix it up.  And I feel like a wet blanket on his spontaneity and unappreciative that he at least wants to do some exercise and I have no idea what else he thinks.  But there's a lot of frustration going on and frustration seems to be the only activity My Fitness Pal does not list as burning any calories. 

In my head, I know I should just run the 1.9 miles with him that he wants to run and then keep going by myself while he heads home.  But that's hard.  Because if he's stopping, my head thinks that's a really good reason to stop, too.  Sigh.

You might think having lost 60 pounds at least partially thanks to exercise would counteract the laziness.  You’d think it would have been a good learning lesson about how to fight the flab.  But I’ll have you know it’s also a good way to convince yourself you don’t need it as much.  Not so much because I think I’m ripped steel perfection now (I wish!) but that maybe I have less flab than I used to and need the exercise a little less.  Which is ridiculous because this chick needs exercise to fight the flab.  My jelly belly needs it.  My indestructible appetite needs it.  And my overall fitness and well being needs it.

Family bike rides after dinner are fun.  Even if you're like me bringing up the rear most days.

But I’ve been letting it get to me.  I’ve been wilting in the face of these distractions.  I’ve got to find my focus again.  I need goals and aspirations.  I need to remind myself that the jelly belly is in fact still jelly and still present and accounted for on my body.

On top of the lack of workout focus, there’s also been a fair amount of food traveling into my house and my general vicinity.  My husband made chocolate chip cookies last week.  I defy you to sit in a house with the smell of fresh from the oven cookie smell wafting around and not taste test at least one cookie.  Because if you can, your name must rhyme with Jillian Michaels and your soul must be made of coal.  Because this girl tasted a cookie and it was delish and those chocolate chips were a little gooey slice of heaven. 

We’ve also had barbecue pork ribs.  Brownie bites with icing.  Ice cream cones after dinner.  Donuts.  Donuts with icing.  Donuts with sprinkles.  Donut holes.  Bacon. More bacon.  And an extra side of bacon with the more bacon.  And one day my husband even made bacon at lunch to go in club sandwiches as if having it 2 days a week with breakfast isn’t enough.  Bacon is hella tasty and the permeating smell makes it extra hard to resist.  We’ve also eaten out several times and there were chips and salsa and margaritas and more chips and some cheesy dip and another margarita and guacamole and tater tots at Sonic and it goes on and on. 

It’s hard staring down yummy crap and not shoveling it in your mouth.  It’d be awesome if my husband could stop baking chocolate chip cookies.  That would also make me less likely to want to punch him in the nose for baking chocolate chip cookies.  But I do realize it’s my mouth and I control what goes into it.  I’m just saying I’m less likely to shove cookies in it if we don’t have fresh baked cookies in the house.  But I do realize he’s allowed to like cookies and not be required to go without them for the rest of his life just because my jelly belly wants to inhale them.   But I also realize its okay to request a little moderation in all the high calorie crap entering our universe.  But I also realize reducing my jelly belly is good for me.  But I also realize it’s my jelly belly not his.   But I also realize this paragraph could go on forever.   He’s a nice guy.  He likes cookies.  It’s not a crime.  It's my own dang fault not his.  There.  And what am I gonna do about it?

The madness must stop.   I must apply the brakes or this train is going to come off the tracks.  In fact, it already feels a little wobbly on the tracks inside my brain.   Must. Stay. Strong.  Train.  Must. Keep.  Going.