Moderation & the Art of Being

It's been a month since my last post. I wish I could say that I've resolved my conflict and am feeling settled. I can't. I've still bounced around between dedicated athlete wannabe and frenzied scale-fixated food Nazi. I've logged a 488 calorie day. And I've logged a 2679 calorie day, supporting the day's 29km run and 1950m swim with healthy food choices. And something new in this mix: I've also had days where I've scarfed down a couple of handfuls of chocolate chips, two cookies, or a brownie from a work meeting. I'd like to say that when I've indulged I've sat down and enjoyed it, really taken the pleasure of having a treat. Instead, it's been a furtive, frenzied chow down before I can change my mind or someone sees me. And I know it's these behaviours that if not managed will cause me to climb back up the scale. It's not the brownie. It's not the cookies. It's the idea that these are forbidden, that eating them is shameful, and so if I'm going to indulge, I must do so in secret. That's my confession. I know this is something I'll need to work on.

I think I understand the underlying issue here. You know how people say everything is OK in moderation? Well, I don't do moderation. I do hyper-restricted fruit and coffee 500-calorie days. And I do super-clean eating, nutrient-dense fueling to support my triathlon & marathon training regime. I'm black or white. Hot or cold. Slow or fast. Just kidding. I'm never fast!

I don't have some epiphany for how I'm going to master this. In my disciplined, rule-based, extreme thinking way, I'd like to create a rule about when and how treats can be enjoyed. Like, only on race days or if I've burned more than 2000 calories in exercise or it's a holiday or I saw a unicorn or all of the above. But I think that's just more control-freak, all or nothing thinking. So for now - right now anyway - I'm just going to let my awareness "be". As I typed that I was reminded of some advice I was given earlier this week: "stop worrying..turn all that energy into focus and just .........BE". Words of wisdom from my trainer. He'll never read this. Don't anybody tell him I suggested he knows what he's talking about.

Getting back to my conflict and whether I want to be an athlete or a scale obsessed wing-nut, I think I've got that figured out. Actually, if I'm going to be honest, I think I've always known which I wanted to be - yes, hello, the blog is titled Strong is the New Beautiful - but I'm starting to think maybe my flip-flopping was fear based. You know, I know how to lose weight. I can chip away at the number on the scale. I can measure progress. But being an athlete? Come on, who are you kidding? That's what my inner critic is telling me. There are no guarantees. I might not finish that Half Ironman within the cut-off times. My knees might not hold out through another marathon. I might not be able to keep up on a club run or ride. And along the way, it's harder to gauge whether you're making progress or going to be successful. And then I think maybe I should stick with what I know. Or I catch sight of The Pooch, and feel like I didn't finish the job I started with this weight loss "thing" and that I need to shift my focus back to driving that number down. Because surely another 5, 10, 15 will take care of The Pooch. Oh hey... we're headed back to Crazy Town!

So one of my challenges, in order to try and maintain this focus on being healthy, being strong, and pursuing my fitness goals is to limit the amount of time spent on my scale. Yes, I've been on that flipping thing every time I change my clothes. Before I get in the shower. On the scale. When I get home from work. On the scale. Before a run. On the scale. After a run. On the scale. You get the idea... And I often made decisions about whether or not to eat dinner based on my post-work weigh in. And after a few days of skipping dinner and logging low calories, my workouts started to suffer. No training with a purpose here. Just going through the motions. And if my goals are based on fitness, performance, body composition... is the scale really telling me that? Hmmm... maybe not. So I have challenged myself to once a day weigh-ins for the rest of March. It's been about a week since I made that decision. It hasn't been easy but I've stuck with it. I still go a little batty over the number. But I only check it once a day. And I don't let it change the game plan when it comes to fueling my training. And that's progress.