the truth hurts

so as you can probably imagine, the fact that i've been MIA for so long hasn't been due to my stellar compliance. there hasn't been much progress to report with my diet and exercise exploits so i've remained unsurprisingly quiet on the issue. in fact, the harsh truth that i have been diligently attempting to ignore, is that my amazing progress from earlier this year has been slowly but steadily eroding in the months since my return from spain, along with all the passion, drive, and enthusiasm that went with it. however, with the holidays on the way and my weight steadily creeping up, i find myself finally ready to put my foot down (yes, once again). the past few months have been really rough for me and although i have made so much progress in terms of knowing what diet and exercise work for my body, compliance is still a huge uphill battle when other things in my life are challenging. in between feeling stuck in a job that i'm not all that fond of, struggling to make my relationship with my boyfriend work, and having a rough time with my transition home in general, emotional eating has returned. it doesn't help that the aforementioned job is in a coffee shop where i'm surrounded by pastries and coffee all day...my willpower has failed me time and again and i have allowed my addiction to sugar to regain control over me. i have been relatively diligent with my exercise, but if there's one thing that i've learned lately it's the truth of the old fitness adage that "you can't out-exercise a bad diet." my biggest ongoing struggle appears to be finding balance. i can stick to any sort of program for long enough to see results. and everything that i find myself trying works (eat stop eat, anabolic diet, etc). but they only work as well as my ability to stick to them and i inevitably find myself getting bored or burnt out on a particular way of eating and then sliding back into my bad habits with a vengeance. i know that it's tied into my emotional state and that there's some part of me that feels deprived, which is why when i backslide it's a deluge instead of a sprinkle. it's as if i don't want it to be such hard work. when i accept that it's hard work and get excited about the rewards then i can stay on track and feel good about it. but often i forget about the longer term rewards and can only seem to focus on how my diet interferes with my social life or how other people don't have to work so hard or how i want to just make it through a day or two without spending so much time obsessing about what i'm eating. i know that balance is the key for me. i have experienced it before, when eating didn't rule my life but i was eating healthily and it's so liberating. i want to learn to simply eat and be nourished, be healthy. i understand that, for some reason, this is what i have been called upon to struggle with at this point in my life and i realize that it will be a while until i am fully in control of the problem, but knowledge is power and i know when i feel healthy and good about what i'm putting into my body and when i don't. having tasted balance and peace with this issue at certain moments in my life only makes me hungrier to get there for good and i'm absolutely certain that i will. that process begins and continues with the acknowledgement that i'm not fully there yet, but i've moved closer before and i'm moving closer again. here we go.