Nightmares

 I had the privileged of going to Zumba this morning!  I don't get to go too often, but I love it when I can!  I could really tell a difference this morning in my energy levels.  The past few times I have gone I have felt really tired and like it was hard to get through the class and I just wanted it to be over, but today my energy levels were soaring!  I can really tell that eating better has impacted my body in that I feel better, and I can think better, and I actually have energy!  Wahoo! 

I also made a trip up to my in-laws and used their pool to do my very first swim!  I swam for 30 minutes and focused on getting used to the water again, the feel of swimming laps under water, breathing and all that.  I was surprised at how out of breath I got!  Then again, I haven't swum laps in a pool since middle school.  I didn't get a photo until I was already showered and dressed but I think you can see how tired I am.  I had trouble walking when I got out!  I have a loooong way to go to become triathlon ready.

And now to completely change the subject.
I'm not sure about you but every time I have gone on a diet in the past including this time, I always have the same nightmare over and over again.  It always comes when I am doing well and eating good and doing good at resisting sweets.  Always the same dream, over and over, at least once a month.  In my dream I am presented with a large array of desserts: candy, cookies, cake, brownies, etc. and I am alone in this room with all these desserts and I can't resist and I eat and eat and eat and in my dream I'm freaking out because I have been doing so good in real life and I don't want to be eating but I can't help it.  I don't want to be breaking my diet, but I can't resist eating all that food!  And when I wake up I am just so relieved that it was a dream, and that I didn't binge like that.  Has anyone else ever had a nightmare like that?  I think it just tells me exactly how bad my relationship with food was.  I was terrified of it, dreaded it, wanting it but can't having it.  A love/hate relationship that was all consuming.  Therefore I find it interesting that last night I had a different nightmare, in the sense that it was a really annoying dream.  In this dream I was weighing myself in the morning and the scale flashed 2.4 pounds (not a typo), after weighing myself a few times and getting the same number I realized that for some odd reason I had stacked two scales on top of each other, and this was the cause of the scale not weighing properly.  After solving this problem by placing the scale on the floor instead of on top of another scale, I tried again only for it to flash 50.2 and then I realized that "oh yeah!" I was using the broken scale and needed to use the other scale.  So I then stepped on the other scale and..... I never knew what the number was because at that exact moment my dream decided to morph into a scene from high school marching band and we were right about to go onto the field for a competition and of course I didn't know any of the music and hadn't been going to practices because I forgot I was in marching band and I didn't know any of my spots.  (This is also a dream I've had before- the terror of performing but I have no idea what the music is or where I'm supposed to go, it's like those dreams about school where you realize that your finals are tomorrow but you haven't been going to class all term).  Anyway, right before we went onto the field I decided that I needed to stop time to figure out what was going on, so logically that is exactly what I did.  After a few moments I realized that I was a super awesome flute player and I had a solo at this performance so I started time and I was playing a piccolo solo to the tune of "let it go" from frozen, which sounded nothing like the actual song, it sounded more like an Irish Jig.  But I was dancing around the field doing my super awesome solo, and you know what is cooler than dancing around on a football field is dancing around on ice skates, so naturally I started skating around playing my piccolo... and that's all I remember.

So now you know how nerdy my dreams are :-p  but I do wonder if I have made a big enough mental shift to where I won't dream about binge eating on all the "forbidden foods" again.  If I can at last make peace with myself and with food and this time when I lose the weight, it will be because I have found a lifestyle instead of adhering to a "plan".