Week 5 Update

Yesterday was the beginning of week 5, and although I am impressed with myself for dragging my exhausted body to the gym to burn off over 500 calories on the treadmill yesterday, I'm not overly thrilled with my meal choices, I was so tired that the idea of cooking just didn't even occur to me, and although I have heaps of frozen dinners in the freezer, I ended up eating cereal and putting myself way over my calories for the day, effectively undoing all my good work at the gym. But oh well, c'est la vie.

I was in Darwin from Thursday night until yesterday morning and it gave me the opportunity that I needed to really clear my head space. I went away with 2 of my closest friends, and they are also the 2 friends who can be incredibly honest with me and call me on the excuses that I'm making for myself and gave it to me straight. As much as I didn't overly enjoy the conversation, I did take it all on board and will be using many of the tips that they suggested as ways to combat different issues I'm coming up against when it comes to the challenge, and I've committed myself to doing the next round of the 12 week challenge as well. Basically, I'm going to continue doing these challenges until I don't find them to be a CHALLENGE anymore, whether it's for a year or 2 years.

Karlan and Charlie also brought up something that I hadn't even really noticed before (how, i don't know because it is staring me straight in the face). I have a serious issue with food. Not that I'm eating too much or too little. But that I view it as the enemy. I spent most of the weekend away paranoid about food, that I was eating more than the others at different sittings, that I wanted to eat bad stuff when they didn't, or when I was proud of myself for not eating too much at one sitting... I was on holidays but food was always ALWAYS on my mind. I was paranoid that the girls were thinking I ate too much, that I wasn't as committed to the challenge as I should be blah blah blah (they were nothing but supportive, but when you've got issues like this, you always think about what others are thinking of you, and forget that everyone else has got their own issues and really aren't that worried about the things you think they would be!)

The fitness side of this challenge I am getting, that's not an issue for me, and I can see the improvements in the fact that I shaved 30 seconds off my 1km test in 4 weeks and jogged the whole way (I only jogged for maybe half of it when we started the challenge). But the issues that I have with food are something that I really need to work out. I haven't been watching the videos that Michelle puts up every few days because I can't watch them at work and I'm too tired to turn my computer on at home after I get home from the gym. I'm thinking I need to have a mammouth session with all of the different videos so far and write down all of her helpful hints, and I also need to put in motion some of the different tips that I was given over the weekend. Blogging about it and making myself accountable to so many people is definitely helping, even though these revelations to myself are extremely painful to admit to as I can't bare the idea that I am so screwed up about this stuff and am wondering if maybe seeing a therapist who specialises in these areas would be of benefit. I am always so determined to work these things out on my own but now I'm wondering if maybe now is the time to get help before the hatred of food becomes my undoing once more.

So, painful crap aside, I am pleased to note that I didn't gain any weight over the weekend! I'm still on track and I still have 7 and half weeks left on the challenge to see improvements. I will come out of this at the other end a happier person, this is just the transition process!

Thank you for listening to my little rant!