A Run along Struggle Street

So my head was in another place yesterday and I'm still having a little struggle with myself.  Let me explain.

After a brilliant day at Mt. Leura with the girls on Saturday, I let my guard down.  See, Mike was away for the weekend off camping up in the goldfields (his passion is being out in the bush chasing the yellow stuff).  In days gone by this was my key to stock up on the yummy things and have myself a feast, visit the roadhouse for hot chippies, the bakery for a cake, all the good stuff.  I'd have myself a regular party when he was gone.

That was the OLD me.

Now he's been off camping many many times over the past 12 months and I've had no problems.  I've eaten clean, I've exercised, I've busied myself with sewing or scrapbooking or visiting friends.  And always when he came home there'd be a nice 12wbt approved meal waiting, all has been good.

Not this time.

Yesterday I had a bit of a chocolate blowout and didn't see it coming.  I went down to the supermarket at one stage on Sunday to get some milk and came home with two big kit kats and ate them one after another, barely drawing breath.  I then followed it with a big bowl of muesli dolloped with yoghurt and honey, one of my favourite things.  I wasn't hungry, I didn't need it, and I felt like absolute crap after it.

Worse than crap.   I started to question (and doubt) everything that I had learnt over the past 12 months.  Not only that, but I doubted my resolve on this path that I have chosen and made for myself, particularly if it was so easy to fall back into bad habits.  Is that dark place always going to be lurking there around the corner?  Am I forever to be one weak moment away from a binge?  And of course I know two kit kats and a bowl of muesli does not a binge make, but the feelings I had at the time were exactly like the old days, when I would eat until I felt sick.  It's freaking scary.

So this morning on my day off I wanted to punish myself.  And I took to the road and ran all the way out of town to the farms on the outskirts and did a big loop of the area.  As I ran up one of the back roads I was running into the wind and I felt so heavy and my legs were like logs (perhaps psychological) and I was hurting, oh man was I hurting.  I had to wipe away tears thinking I was using running this morning as a form of punishment.

That screwed with my head even more.  Running is meant to be my "me" time, my enjoyment, my moments of glory and satisfaction, but this morning I used it against me and that was just not right.  I know that.  But it's the way my upside down head was thinking.

I know that a moment's delight of chocolate is just not worth the inner turmoil, angst and frustration I have felt over the past two days.  I am going to have to always be on my guard for the rest of my life.  Lesson learnt (hopefully).

One thing I did do though was I owned up to the girls in our Warrnie group.  I realised I wasn't alone.  So much so that Miss Kellie has issued the Kit Kat challenge to the girls, that our challenge this week is to resist our food downfall that is potentially holding us back from success.  We needed to own up to a food item that we keep going back to, maybe a habit we've gradually formed and it's become the norm, anything that is potentially holding us back from success.  We had to share that vice, resist it and then report back at the end of the week.

So my habit I've reported on (apart from the double Kit Kat shame) is that I've gotten into the habit of having a snack after dinner, perhaps around supper time.  Completely not needed.  I'm nice and satisfied by my dinner.  But it has become a habit, a hot drink and a snack.

This week dinner is the last food that will be eaten by me of an evening.  No further food consumed of a night.  I'm allowing myself a hot water drink, maybe a coffee or a tea, but that's it.  Lets see how I go and if I can last a week doing so, maybe a new (better) habit is then formed.

And if you've made it this far, you deserve a medal reading the ramblings of my sad and sorry head.