A Reading Frenzy

Several years ago, well almost 12 now, I had a goal every year to read 52 books. That's about one book a week. And I found that I did it, and then some, year after year. It was great. I felt like my brain was engaged on a regular basis.

Now these books weren't always masterpieces or epic tales or even good. I didn't expect them to be. I expected to be entertained for a short period of time and move on. In fact, I so often "moved on" immediately. Finishing one book and immediately picking up another. I may not remember most those stories or be able to recount the plot in any of them. But that wasn't the point for me back then. My goal was to read. My goal wasn't to retain.

The key to that success? No cable. I didn't have anything to watch or any way to sit in front of the picture tube and watch endless tales of murder, mayhem, romance, drama etc. I had cancelled my cable to save some coin. And it was worth it 100%.

Over the years my goal has dipped and dropped to where I no longer even have a goal. I think in the back of my head I figure I can read about 12-20 books a year so that's about all I do. 12 of them are likely book club books - so I'm not even doing much work searching out books I want to read.

3 weeks ago I finished a book called The Girl You Left Behind and devoured it in a 24 hour period. I couldn't stop reading it. I couldn't put it down. I had to hear the story of these two women and how they intertwined.

Finished that book and was hungry for another. Then I picked up my selection for book club for July, Love and Ruin - finished that in 2 days. Sorted my Nook by the oldest and started from the bottom. Read a book from one of my favorite fantasy authors, a somewhat trashy novel, a FANTASTIC book by Maeve Binchy called Echoes, picked up Speak - read it in a day and then last night finished Paper Towns by John Green.

All those books are so different and varied stories that I found myself last night comparing this lust for reading I suddenly have to my life style change the HAS to happen.

Historically my "dieting" habit has been a bit like my reading life. I kick ass at it for some time, then fall off and eat God knows what, then I hop back on, fall off, rinse, lather, repeat.

The thing is, now with having some knowledge of what is happening to my body, or could potentially happen to my body, with diabetes looming in the background, I can't afford to have that merry-go-round approach. The last three weeks of reading frenzy coincides with the last three weeks of my low carb/high protein approach. I'm sure one doesn't have to do with the other, but maybe. Maybe reading burns calories? Hah...I wish.

My point is, as much as I hate the idea of having diabetes or dealing with that, I hate the idea of having to eat "healthy" for the rest of my life. The difference for me now is I'm eating healthy FOR my life. And with my history of falling off the wagon, that scares the living crap out of me. I'm doing great now, but it's only been three weeks.

My brain says Yes. My fat ass is skeptical. And my heart lies somewhere in between.

In the books that I've read over this last three weeks there hasn't always been a great A-HA moment and the moral of the story hasn't always been clear or obvious to me. But the moral to my story is I don't have to be perfect. I have to be aware and take each day, each meal, one by one. The big picture is scary and daunting...the little bits of the picture is not. When I started reading Echoes and realized it's a 494 page book. I almost put it down. "That's too many pages", said my brain. But I read the book chapter by chapter. One at a time. And as I did the story unfolded.  Maybe my new life can be the same. Just maybe.