A week ago I decided I needed to clean things up a bit. I’d again fallen into a pattern of unhealthy habits. As documented in this little experiment, I am an all in or all out person and thus when I need to improve things, I usually go to the extreme. Last week was no different.
When I was in college and the 5 years following, I pushed myself to the edges of addiction and my personality seems wired for that. “Too much” is a common theme. The last few months have been no different. I’d say the Coronageddon was partly to blame, but I’ve arrived here without it so regardless of where the blame lies, I knew I needed to reroute.
Really my depiction of where i felt I was and where it actually was are probably different. To be fair. I had simply created a default of “it’s five o’clock somewhere.” I was up about 13 lbs and the pain in the ass of doing something about it became enough.
A friend of mine who I ride bikes with shared a post about his struggles with body image recently. He’s far superior the athlete than I am and to the outside world, a freak. He still battles “not enough”. I think the majority of us do. I know that since I was in 5th grade or so, I have. That a long ass time if you’re scoring at home. I don’t blame Seventeen Magazine or the world for this obsession. To me, I’ve always felt like we (humans) were built a certain way and that takes a certain amount of work to get to. Throw in eating like crap in the 80’s and I gave myself an uphill battle.
“How could you have felt this way at 10 or 11?” some may ask. I was a competitive swimmer growing up and walking around in public in a speedo was second nature to me. It also highlighted the squishiness as it was on full display. So it started early. And has remained.
In the early 2000’s this started to change (how I looked, not how I thought). I began training for my first triathlon in late 2000 and when I started I was likely my heaviest ever. Around 220. I was recouping from shoulder surgery and an overall attitude of “fuck it”. I trained. My body changed. I ate better. My body changed. More yielded more. I did more.
For the next 10 years I immersed myself in being the healthy guy (still do) but an interesting thing began to happen. I became a slightly above average athlete, but I also figured out that I could do a lot without trying as hard. Drink more. Eat whatever when I wanted. Ramp up training to melt off 5-10 lbs and so on.
I did it in the name of balance and at the expense of my potential. Internally, though I knew and the questions remained. “Yes you are slightly above average, but what would happen if you fully dedicated yourself.”
To a lot of you reading this you must be saying “What the fuck is enough with you?” To that I say, nothing. I say that, but I don’t always do that.
If you’re with me still you may be thinking that this is a long explanation for why you went on a diet last week, but how we get to where we are matters. My wife and friends can’t understand why I have to go to the extremes on either end so. I thought I’d try and explain.
Another theme I have (read: possible neuroticism) is that I am constantly trying to finish. To see things through. This doesn’t go well with diet changes as I will starve before I quit (not literally). This brings us to last week.
On Sunday, I announced that I’d be giving another go at whole30. If you’ve not heard of it, it’s a diet that is based on reducing inflammation and trying to pinpoint food allergies. It eliminates alcohol, sugar, grain, processed food, and dairy for 30 days. Thereafter you add in one thing at a time and see if anything you add back causes issue. As you are mostly eating air, meat and veggies, you also tend to shed pounds. Having done it before and lost 11 lbs over 30 days, I decided to do another 30.
What happened next is what happened before. I stuck to it like a spartan and my caloric intake plummeted. Turns out this diet works for me because I can’t possibly eat enough. This would be fine except for the fact that just like when I did this in 2017, my training load didn’t reduce, and in fact it increased.
For going on two weeks I have struggled through just about every workout. No snap in my legs and dragging myself home the last miles of everything run and ride. But hey. Look how healthy I’m eating.
On the 8th day I had a 2 hour run planned in the hills of a town an hour north of us. Knowing I had ridden hard the day before I gave myself a break and just went super easy. From mile one it was a death march. I had packed potatoes along because you can eat those on the diet and I thought they would help. They didn’t. Do you know how many calories a whole russet potato has? I googled it so I do. 160. I had 5 little red pots with me. It was a struggle. Dehydrated and spent I rode home asking myself what the fuck I was doing.
In the hours before this run I posted my post Whole30 recap. Because I am a fool, I didn’t re read it. If I had I would have remembered that for me, training and whole30 aren’t a match. I would have remembered that whole30 has a cult like following and that being perfectly whole30 compliant can be the goal regardless of how people feel. I would have remembered that I said that the biggest benefit was the hard reset and that after day 15, adherence was easy but that I never saw rainbows and unicorns and felt any renewed energy. I would have remembered that I said that I likely wouldn’t do it ever again.
I spent a lot of time on that run Sunday considering why the hell I do the things I do. I also realized that just like the people I coach, I am a living, breathing example of “do as I say, not as I do.” I spent a lot of time coming to terms with what balance means and what being healthy means. It made me draw some lines at what finishing means.
I purport to do what I do in the name of health and balance. A scale tipped to one side isn’t balanced. An idiot can see that.
During the ride home I also saw how very quickly our mind can flip right back into “poor habit” mode. I started immediately justifying what I could eat or drink in the name of balance. I argued that I am doing this to live my best life. That I deserve to enjoy certain things. Slipper slopes indeed.
So, what did I do? I decided to not make any drastic changes for one week and here’s why. I need at least two weeks of rigidly to break bad habits. Some people may need more. I have adhered to whole30 and will through this Sunday but there is a caveat. I am allowing myself some rice/simple carbs as needed. I’ll go through two weeks while coming up with a plan moving forward.
That plan will consist of at the least 2 weeks of pretty heavy restrictions, with a return to a balanced diet on day 15. Clean eating, mostly plants, lean proteins, limited alcohol. I’d like for it to give me more energy, to fuel me for the life I want to live. I want to have energy. I want to enjoy a social existence with friends on the weekends or a day a week. I want my food life to mimic my goals to live big and healthily. I’d like to quit worrying about being fluffy.
The last thing I realized last Sunday was that I am a creature of habit when it comes to workout out. Despite vowing to do more strength training, I pile on miles and volume. This yields a mental release I don’t get from strength training yet also doesn’t yield the results I become obsessed with when it comes to body image and my peak performance. I do know that to drop fat I must eat correctly, but I also know more muscle burns more fat. Yet I do nothing to build any. So again, I start.
Over the rest of my gulag (two weeks of restrictions) I am going to work on a FRESHJUNKIE “diet”. I can’t believe I typed that as I have been against this for 20 years. Think of it more as a manifesto for eating and living. Some rules to live by “most of the time” so we can get the most out of life “all of the time”. Small sacrifices to make us better and teach us restraint while allowing us to live a good example to our friends, family and kids.
Like the lines I about in a post last week, you know when you’re eating wrong. Start by listening and facing that.
I’ll have more for you soon.
#hugsandhi5s
