Control is Contagious

I'd like to talk a little today about how control affects my life. When my house is messy, I feel out of control. This spirals into sloppy eating, forgetting to exercise in lieu of lounging on my couch and watching TV, feeling apathetic about my job, etc. Lack of control spills over into all facets of my life. That being said, I am NOT a control freak. Not in the least. In fact, it takes way more effort for me to feel and be in control than it does for me to just let the above mentioned things take over my life until I am miserable.

Another thing that happens when I feel out of control? I shop to make myself feel better. I see this as a pattern with a lot of women in my situation (weight problems, emotional eating, shopping addictions- they all seem to go hand-in-hand). After the passing of my 29th birthday, coupled with a friend's wedding out of town and a vacation, I have way overspent. I am the type of person who shops at home BEFORE vacation, so that I look good whilst shopping ON vacation. It's really ridiculous. I notice that my credit card bills ALWAYS go up at my birthday, and Christmas. Times when I feel the overwhelming urge to use shopping as a means to make myself feel better about my current situation.

Yesterday afternoon started with the tiniest bit of control, that, has led me down a very self-assuring war path. My boyfriend D was in town, with the day off. We spent it lunching at our favorite pizza dive, looking at doggies and kitties at the SPCA, and playing on the Wii Fit. I had to work last night, and the kitchen was a mess. Normally, I'd just leave it that way until my stretch of work was over. Especially since D was in town, I wanted to spent all the minutes I had with him up until the point of going to work. However, I really didn't want that out-of-control-messy-house-feeling when I returned home this morning. So, while D was playing on the Wii, I told him I wanted to just take a minute to straighten the kitchen and get my lunchbox all packed and ready to go. In all seriousness, it took 20 minutes tops, and it's made a huge impact on my psyche.

I'm tired of feeling out of control and I KNOW that the out-of-control feelings keep me treading down the wrong path in terms of how I treat my body. When I don't CARE about the appearance of my home, my financial situation, my job- I don't CARE what I eat either. It's amazing how closely they are linked.

So, I'm probably going to focus a lot on control and order in my life for a while. Maybe it DOES mean I'm turning into a control freak- but if it means a better me in the end, then so be it.

Here are some more things that I got a grip on today:

1) Posting my credit card balances on my white board in my office. There are several with small amounts on them that should (and WILL) be paid off immediately. Then, I can focus on whittling down the bigger ones. In all reality, I'm not talking tens of thousands of dollars here, but it's a number that makes me feel very uncomfortable. Especially knowing that a lot of the debt is there because I used money that I didn't have to make me feel better about myself.

2) Opened a special savings account that puts $1 into my savings each time I use my check card, pay a bill online, or set up a recurring payment online. If anything could curb the impromptu trips to Target, Starbucks and late-night trips to fast food places, this is it! Knowing that an extra dollar comes out of my checking an goes into my savings each time I use my check card, will make me think twice about using that little piece of plastic so much. There are some days where I probably swipe it 20 or so times. On ridiculous crap. This should take care of that, hopefully. Not to mention I'll be effortlessly socking away money into savings, which is something I'm currently not doing. If mind games/checking account games are the way to get it done, then I'm all for it.

Next, I am off to straighten my living room and kitchen, and plan meals for the next upcoming 5 or so days. I really want to see how much this control kick I'm on pays off on the weight loss front.

Oh, oh, oh- and probably the biggest control thing that I'm doing- is that I'm initiating a spending moratorium on clothes for myself. I reason that I've got enough range of clothing sizes to comfortably wear what is already in my closet until I've lost 35 pounds or more. So, until my Weight Watchers Online Weight Tracker says I've lost 35 pounds, there will be no more money available for clothes. That's it, end of story!

I feel better already! I peeked at the scale on Wednesday morning and I was down roughly a pound, which I will take this week because I started back on plan on Monday, and my weigh-in day is Friday. I'm going to do more Wii Fit tonight to continue to ease back into things and then Friday and Saturday are going to be designated as hardcore gym days! I'd love to see a big loss next Friday!