Not Just a Man's World

Do you ever have one of those “aha!” moments?  Those moments when you suddenly realise the reason why you are doing something.  

As an example, I might spend weeks working on a new exercise in the gym because it’s good for some part of your range of motion and all of a sudden I’ll try the move I’m trying to assist and realise that it’s working and I haven’t wasted my time.  Or I’ll be working on face pulls and suddenly I’ll get my shoulders and back muscles into the right place and everything suddenly works.

This is, unfortunately, not a cheery post about such a great moment.  Instead I had a crisis of confidence about my diet in June.  A sort of reverse aha moment.

Why do I have to deny myself cream cakes?

My reverse aha moment

I’d been a bit off-diet for a couple of weeks due to the holiday and general lack of willpower.  Working late and driving all over the country I was starting to struggle to resist coming home via the shops and picking up a trifle, or a cream bun, or (when I could persuade myself to be a bit better) some hot ready-cooked chicken, or prawn cocktail.  However, the cream buns were cheaper, so they featured more.

On one of these occasions I pulled into the car park, turned off the car engine and thought long and hard.  I watched a few people coming out of the supermarket.  One was eating an ice-cream.  Another was carrying a few paper bags of doughnuts.  Yet another person came out with a big box of beer and a pile of ready-to-bake pizzas – presumably getting ready for a night in front of the football.

It suddenly struck me – why was I doing this to myself?  Why was I denying myself what I wanted and suffering from guilt-pangs when I did get a “treat”? 

Yes, my figure is better than it was, but before I started down this path my figure was more petite (if less lean) and I didn’t care about how I looked.  These days I’m endlessly worrying about my figure. 

Yes, I’m ill less often but how sick was I before?  Maybe a couple of times each year.

Here were all these other people eating what they want, when they want.  They may worry about their body fat, but probably not obsessively.  I was crazy to try to be any different.

It even started to affect my training.  I suddenly couldn’t understand why I was putting myself through all this pain in the gym each week.  I went into workouts in a demotivated state.  I just couldn’t find any fun in it anymore.

Pulling out of the rut

After a couple of weeks of this I got ill.  Unlike my bout of flu in January when I was better within a couple of days, this time I felt exhausted, demotivated and miserable and it took me a week to get back on my feet.

Being ill gave me time to think.

I hadn’t taken my Vitamin D for a couple of weeks, due to holidays and forgetfulness.  That could be a cause for getting ill in such superb style.  But I started to think that poor diet was also instrumental in my slow recovery.

Then I had a read through my own blog.  The articles about diet.  The articles about why I do what I do.  Articles about motivation, bone density, long lasting health.  It was like being hit over the head with a mallet.  Repeatedly. 

Why do I diet?  Why do I deny myself the things I crave?  Why do I sometimes struggle but not give in?

Because I care about myself and I care about being able to do the things I want to do with my life.

Am I back on track?

I’m definitely getting there.  A benefit of being ill was that my appetite reduced and I didn’t leave the house.  That was enough to break the addictive habit so that I no longer craved the wrong foods.  There really is something in the “addictive carbs” argument.

I’ve not been off-diet since I was ill and I’ve taken some time to think about what really caused this crisis of confidence.  My biggest problems revolve around the availability of paleo snacks and the cost of food in the UK.  It’s easy to “treat” yourself to something that is completely outside the realm of the paleo diet when you go into a shop, but unless you have plenty of spare cash or a stove in the back of the car it’s almost impossible to treat yourself to a snack that is paleo.  A definite problem since the easiest solution is pure willpower.

Yes, I definitely think I’m back on track.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you wonder why you’re doing something like this, whether diet or training-related?

Related posts:

1. Top ten tips for sticking to a diet (part 1)
2. Top ten tips for sticking to a diet (part 2)
3. Blog-watch: diet and other health-related blogs