….or “You Get Down Off That Ledge Right Now!”.
As my friend Tara said this morning, this concept of ‘stay the course’ can be applied to a lot of things in our lives however right now I’m going to apply it to nutrition and exercise. We are all members of an instant gratification society, no one ever wants to work for anything or suffer the ups and downs of what is regular life.
I’m in Day 25 of my grain free existance and up until Monday afternoon, I’ve felt really good, seeing tonnes of progress in my shape and the way I feel, my hair and nails are nicer, my skin is clearer, my gut is (well, was) gone and my energy was on the upswing. My internal/mental health has been calm and positive. All good things. And then? On Monday afternoon my stomach bloated up. Like….big time bloat. I could actually feel it happening as though someone was blowing up a balloon. Weighing on Monday night and Tuesday morning I was still at my low weight, weighing Tuesday night I was up and this morning I’m up almost 2 pounds and my stomach is round and tight and uncomfortable. I just about shit myself when I got up this morning and looked at my stomach and then got on the scale.
Obviously this is a physiological reaction to something that I’ve eaten or am eating, but I have to tell you that when everything is going along like gang busters and then for no apparant reason I’m heading in exactly the opposite direction, it makes me panic. In a world of instant gratification it makes me want to DO SOMETHING to fix it. Only….there’s nothing to do. I’m not doing anything wrong.
Now, getting freaked out about this little 3 day anomoly amidst 25 days of success might seem slightly crazy or disordered. But remember where I came from, over 260 pounds and while that was almost 5 years ago, in the back of my head I’m a fat woman in a skinny woman’s body and when all the things that I do to make myself feel better and look better and be healthier don’t work, it makes me afraid that one day I’m going to end up back there. It’s probably an irrational fear but that doesn’t make it any less real in my head. I would have to do some fairly horrible things to my body and my eating in order to gain back 100 pounds. Three days and 2 pounds is not the same thing…..but sometimes in my head it can feel the same.
So I’m going to carry on and eat protein, veggies and good fat and listen to my body and get good exercise. It’s all I can do.
Still on the ‘Stay the Course’ theme of this post. I was staring out my window at work all day soaking up the sunshine (OK, I was working while staring…it was more like productive staring) and was sooo looking forward to getting home, lacing up and heading to the park for a run. I raced home, threw the dog outside, went and changed into my gear………and came back out into the living room to look out the window at a torrential downpour. Dog was soaked, I was pissed and decided to burn some energy by tidying up and starting some laundry. 10 minutes later? Gorgeous blue skies and blazing sunshine again! Just a passing shower, I guess. Gear back on and off I went! I fired up mapmyrun and set off. I felt good! Better fueled compared to Monday, less walking more running, I felt faster, stronger and I was thinking that my results should be at least a couple of minutes quicker time than Monday. When I got out of the park and onto the street where I go three blocks on pavement, I ran the whole thing (that’s normally my cool down), I ran right into my driveway at full tilt to make SURE I got a good time. hahahaaaaaa
Monday: 5.43km ~ 38:21
Yesterday: 5.57km ~ 38:35
So pretty much exactly the same. Talk about disheartening, when you think that you are kicking ass hard and you realize your result is the same as the day that you struggled the entire way! I told Ray I would have been happier having not known the time/distance result and just going on believing that my run yesterday was really good, faster and stronger. LOL!
I’m going to stay the course though, because regardless of what my iPhone app says, I worked as hard as I possibly could at that run. I did the best I could do at that time and that is the best result I can ever have. Improvement is great but sometimes the improvement is mental, not time or distance!
Tonight after work we’re going to go for a bicycle ride. It won’t be a sweat-burner like if I went alone but it’ll be good to get some fresh air together and it’s always fun for me when Ray comes on a bicycle ride because he’s lived here all his life so he knows all the little alleyways and side roads and park trails to get places without ever having to ride on main roads. It’s nice seeing new things! And I never remember where we’ve been or how we got there so it’s always new!
One more day, kids, then the weekend!
Fitty vs Fatty 
I just ordered the book “Wheat Belly” I’ve kind of hit a point where I can’t seem to trim off the last little bit of body fat around my midsection and wonder if its not my diet. I eat really healthy lots of vegetables, low fat, and even higher fiber, but I do eat a lot of whole grain bread, pasta, and other wheat products. I’m going vegan for the month of March just to try it out and get some new material to write about but I also plan to reevaluate my grain or more specifically wheat consumption.
Oh, my sister just ordered that book, she hasn’t read it yet but I’m curious to see what it’s like! I like Mark’s Daily Apple for all the info about grains etc and why they are bad,science behind it etc.
His “Definitive Guide To Grains” is fantastic info.
I waffled back and forth quite a bit before I decided to make the leap to Grain Free, outside of the last three days, it’s been an amazing difference….and surprisingly not that difficult.
I have been a vegetarian in the past, was for 2 years and then I was vegan for a year. To be perfectly honest, I was never as unhealthy as I was during those three years. Not to say it’s a terrible choice because everyone is different….but I certainly didn’t do it right and given the time and energy and balancing act it takes to do it properly, I suspect that most people don’t do it correctly. I’ve always laughed because vegetarians that I know (and myself, way back when) never ate any veggies! It’s all starch and carbs and sugar! An actual vegetable based diet has to be better!
Good luck, cool that you’re trying something to see how it fits your life, I look forward to reading about it!
Hang in there! You’re obviously just caught in one of those cycles where things appear screwed even when they’re not — it’s just too flukey otherwise that both the scale and your stopwatch would be messing with you like that…