I took my bike out for a quick 15 miles this morning. The weather was bright, dry and without wind, so ok it was 4 degrees but it was as close to perfect as you are likely to get given the time of year. The first mile was slow and as I climbed the hill out of my village I was struggling. Why so slow & why is this so hard? I hit the top of the hill and unusually stopped to catch my breath. I hadn’t trained in 5 days so it wasn’t fatigue that was affecting me.
Three miles later and I felt like my muscles were still cold and my lungs reluctant. Surely this was going to get easier soon I thought. Over the next hill and a few miles further down the road there was still no sign of the new legs I was hoping for. It hit me that over the past week I hadn’t been sleeping well and with work, stress levels were unusually high. To a certain extent stress levels are always reasonable high but this past week has been tough. Were these two factors having a bigger effect than I had budgeted for?
I hit mile 10 and I was starting to get cross with myself! What on earth is going on I demanded to know, I have been training for the past 5 weeks and this should be a heck of a lot easier. Then it struck me for the past week my diet has been so poor its been close to a dung fly’s. With stress come anxiety and with anxiety comes comfort eating. If I’m honest the last week has been nothing short of a disgrace. An old saying about computers says “crap in- crap out” why should my body be any different, crap food = crap performance. Then in my anger and frustration I heard the bike say to me, it’s the junk food or me… Cheeky git I thought, but you know something? Cheeky or not, the bike or just a thought, whatever it was it is right! Things need to change if I want to experience results, its time not just to train but to commit to a balanced diet. It is time to start prioritising decent sleep and to stop running from stress and instead to work through it. It’s time to take control and give myself a chance of progress.
Of course this is nothing new; this has been a three year journey that has looked more like the hokey cokey than a journey towards weight loss and health. I’m tired of the one step forward two steps back approach. I’ve been huffing with myself for ages about this issue. What is the point of losing weight if you are just going to put it back on? Three times now I’ve moved from 19 and a half stone to 17 stone and three times I’ve put it back on. I need to grow up and move on, crap or get off the pot so to speak. Here’s to movement into new ground and thinking never to return to the old pastures of the hokey cokey.
Ocean Blue 