Making better choices

I’m pretty sure Lululemon did a ton of research when considering the “manifesto” to put on the bags you get at the store and withe everyone online order. I’m currently alternating between a black bag and a red bag for my carrying my lunch to work. I have a lunch bag that keeps things cool, but I now have a refrigerator/microwave in my office at school.

Plus, the Lululemon bags are much cuter than that one.

And it screams “I work out! Yes I do!” to everyone who cares. Which is likely no one at either job.

But I digress.

I saw the featured part of my bag the other day, about stress being related to illness. My first thought: “Oh yeah.”

I mentioned in my somewhat more open previous post that I had a stomach issue that forced me to have an unplanned surgery in July 2010. I’ll explain more.

I had pain. Horrible pain. For about two years, I just kept letting it go. It would come at night mostly. It would hit me hard. I thought it was kidney stones.

Kidney stones run in my family. So it made sense. I had tests run. Lots of test. Lots of uncomfortable peeing in a cup. Yep, I said it.

I had a bunch of blood tests too. Not as many as when I diagnosed with high blood sugar a few years before. But many. No root cause. Nothing that would indicate a condition underlying.

“Perhaps you should consider that the pain is a physical manifestation of your stress,” the doctor said.

“Seriously?” I said, half astonished, half sarcastic.

It was and wasn’t in the end. Surgery proved that.

Still, it made me think.

Stress. Ah, stress.

I’ve spent most of my recent life in some sort of stage of stress. I pushed myself to graduate from college in three years. I’m still not sure how I did it.

In graduate school, I developed an ulcer from the stress of working on my masters project and running, quickly, out of money (thanks Grandma for saving me! If it wasn’t for her unexpected checks here and there, wrapped in tinfoil for a reason only own to her, I wouldn’t have made it to my summer internship in Dallas).

Then I took a job with no time off between it and my internship. And I immediately plunged into wedding planning. For eight months I came home and planned during my off hours from work. Moved into a rental house 25+ miles from my job two days before the wedding. Then had to adjust to the commute.

Then we bought a house.

Stress. Yes. I know stress well.

But last night and today, I officially decided my new mantra is “make better choices.”

In life. In fitness. In my goals.

How did I start? With a strawberry Chobani yogurt for breakfast. A Weight Watchers lunch. And pretzel chip snacks.

I’m getting a little hungry, but I’m making it through.

Today, I start making better choices in general.

That means not going for a run to make a quota, but because my body wants to. Today I slept in and got up and ran eight miles on the treadmill. Every step I wanted to stop (because my legs are more tired than usual), but I didn’t. I kept going.

I started this blog to share my views on running. I’ve been reluctant to really get into anything about my diet or my weight just because I didn’t feel as if it would “fit” here.

Well, it’s my blog and I can complain if I want to. I’m not changing the theme, I’m adding more variety.

It makes sense to me. So I’ve added a category, the first in a long while: “Making better choices.”

So here I start. Today and tomorrow and on and on are about making better choices. I’m hoping to continue my path by going to the store with my husband this evening. We haven’t been for awhile together. Either or the other goes. But when we used to go together, we’d eat better.

I want to start that again.

And it’s a step, right?