Dichotomy

As this very moment, there is a baked tilapia fillet and fresh baby spinach waiting to be my lunch.  However, my mind is fantasizing about a steamy soy white mocha and all its frothy sweet goodness.  I live in this constant dichotomy of what I should do and what I'm actually doing.  With every move and every meal, I know exactly what I'm supposed to do.  I'm not one of those hopeless individuals that needs guidance on what foods to eat to achieve a slim, well-nourished body.  I know exactly what types of workouts to do in order to gain lean muscle tone and more endurance.  I also know how to set the alarm clock to make it to the gym in the wee hours of the morning before the crowds arrive, so I can get my workout done before any excuses have time to formulate.   But that's the "athlete" side of me.  That's the super chic that enjoys being in motion and breathing in the fresh air of an early morning run.  That's the girl that doesn't care what the workout is, as long she breaks a sweat everyday.

But that girl has been so quiet lately, it's like she went on a long vacation and decided to never come home.  She has been replaced by the "homebody" side of me.  That's the girl that finds much joy in curling up on the couch in her pj's all day, doing mindless snacking and binge watching DVR'd shows for hours.  She indulges in what I call "broad spectrum" eating.  Yeah, that's my own made up term, thanks to the psych degree I don't have.  This is when I eat something really salty or fried, which throws my taste buds out of whack and I have to balance it with a super sweet food after that.  This is why an order of salty french fries is easily followed up with a chocolate milkshake, right?  My taste buds swing back and forth on opposite ends of the junk food spectrum, trying to achieve balance.  But the worst thing this "homebody" side of me tends to do is hide away, because the weight very quickly begins to pack onto her once active body, and she is ashamed.

I went on a short 3 mile run/walk this morning by myself.  I could have called my dear running buds to keep me company, but I didn't.  It has been some time since I ran on a regular schedule and I knew I would be too slow to keep up with them.  Instead, I went solo to keep to myself what I knew would be a less than stellar attempt at a workout.  I took a break from running after my last race a few months ago, to force myself to go back to the gym and concentrate on strength training.  The experiment worked for about 3 weeks and then I allowed work fatigue and processed foods to overtake me once again.  The bad foods suppress my appetite for the moment, but they contain so few nutrients that they leave me feeling more tired, which keeps me from working out, which causes the weight gain, which makes it harder to move my now heavier body.  I have allowed my weight to creep up to it an all time high and it physically hurts to do some of things I used to love doing, like running.

You might look at me and think "she doesn't look all that bad", because I hide a lot of it.  I might not look "all that bad" for a normal person, but it is pretty bad considering I know better.  It is bad considering I once coached and trained others to workout and lose weight, but I can't seem to do it myself.  How's that for a sobering fact?  I could write a damn book filled with all the knowledge I've gained regarding physical fitness and nutrition, but I haven't been able to put those smarts to work for myself in a long while.  It makes me feel like a big ol' fraud.  However, one thing my husband says about me is that I have a trait of always trying to pick myself back up and I've never been afraid to start over.  He keeps reminding me that I got in the best shape of my life exactly twice...after the births of each of my boys.  He feels I was the most dedicated and focused on my fitness after they were born, when I could have been an unorganized mess getting used to the new pressures of motherhood.  I think he secretly just liked the larger size of boobs while I was nursing, but that's another story.

My husband has long been my biggest supporter, but also my biggest critic.  Hey, before you start to think of him as some pig of man that just wants a hot wife, I have to clarify that statement.  You see, he never stops seeing me as that athletic super chic that treats herself better than I do right now.  He talks to me about my workouts and nutrition the way a coach talks to their star athlete.  We used to workout together, but I fell off the wagon, using work/kids/schedule as the rotating excuses.  But now I miss it.  I miss feeling good about my nutrition.  I miss feeling accomplished at the end of a hard workout.  So, here I go again, in an attempt to climb back up into the saddle and regain my focus.  The time is going to pass whether I make the best use of it or not.  A few months from now, I want to be able to look back and feel good about what I've done and be proud of the results those efforts have yielded for me.  I want to finally be able to say I took my own advice, which is to shut down the excuses and just do it.  Stop whining, get to work and let the athletic super chic take her rightful place in my psyche.  It's easy to say the words, but lets see if I can actually live up to my own hype.