Frustration and Anger

Today was a trying day for me.  Nothing seemed to go right at work, someone let me down that I totally shouldn't have been surprised at, and the day ended on a bit of a sour (and also unsurprising) note.  All in all, it was a very disappointing day, and it shouldn't have been.  Basically I set my expectations of others too high and, as usual, it bit me in my ass.

All I really wanted to do was come home, flop on my couch and veg out with some mindless television.  But instead I put on my big girl panties (along with my sweats) and pushed play on the DVD remote.  And started sweating.

I was about ten minutes into my combined sixty minutes of cardio when I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started to get mad.  I was mad at the person who bailed on me today, but mostly I was mad at myself for being even a little bit surprised.  And I was really mad that I was letting how I felt about the situation color my time outside of work.  "Hells bells," I thought, "there isn't enough money in the world to let my job affect my lifestyle changes I'm trying to make!"

Funny thing about anger and frustration.  Sometimes they can work to your advantage.  I began to realize that the madder and more frustrated I got, the harder my body pushed itself.  I became more focused, more driven and probably sweated more than I ever have in my life.  And I finished strong, something I would have thought was unattainable a couple of weeks ago.

My husband says sixty solid minutes of cardio is a lot for anybody and wondered if I should really be doing that much.  I told him that I was just following the plan and since I wasn't dead, it must be okay.  Am I uncomfortable?  Well, hell yes, I am!  My clothes are damp as is my hair and I'm sore as hell.  And although it's not even 8:00 at night, I feel like if my eyes close long enough to blink they'll remain that way for the rest of the night.

Here's the thing; nobody really cares if I succeed at this.  And that's okay, since they're not the ones who let themselves go and have to listen to an inner skinny bitch and an outer fatty battle it out in their heads.  I did that.  And it doesn't matter that I'm not receiving praise and accolades from people whose opinion really doesn't matter to me anyway.  The ones who do are matter are supportive enough, and the person whose opinion matters the most would completely give herself a pat on the back if her arms weren't too sore to lift.