Random musings

The de-bloat continues. It was absolutely crap weather last night, leaving me with a choice of getting completely drenched running outside, heading to the gym or copping out altogether. Gym it was then. Just a quick 45 min session - 15 min X-trainer, 15 min run on the treadmill, 10 min row (2k distance) and 5 min cool down on the stationary bike.

My eating was pretty on par yesterday, so I've pulled back some of my cock-up from Monday night. Honestly, my eating wasn't quite as good today, but not altogether bad, and with the judicious application of a truly ferocious Body Combat class this evening, I've banked another little bit against the points overspend.

In fact it turns out that I had a lot of pent-up aggression to vent in tonight's class, and it felt goooooooood. I've had a crappy, stressful day at work, but it went hand-in-hand with a bit of self-discovery, so not an entirely wasted day. We had a working lunch buffet today, because my boss is heading off on maternity leave tomorrow (and yes, I was good - one plate from the buffet, including a healthy sandwich, and then leave it alone), and since there were loads of goodies left, the platters got bought through to the office during the afternoon.

With all the stressiness going on, I found myself pinching another cocktail sausage from the platter as I wandered past without really thinking about it. Then I found myself sitting at my desk thinking well, if I'm just going past anyway on the way to get a drink, what do I fancy? Then I found myself wondering why I wanted food when I wasn't hungry and had been pretty well-behaved at lunch - why cock it up now? I've realised that I am in fact a stress-eater. The anticipation of food felt like it would numb the stress - which of course it wouldn't, well not permanently, it would just distract me temporarily with feelings of instant gratification (shortly to be followed by feelings of remorse I should imagine).

The good thing with making a realisation like that is that every subsequent time you walk past the platter, you're more determined not to give in. I just had a lot of shitty stressiness to get rid of at Combat instead, but I reckon that just means I burned a few extra calories off.

I've also spent that last couple of days with some words floating round my head in a loop:

FASTER FITTER LIGHTER STRONGER

They just seem to totally sum up where I want to be at the end of this. I find as I go along this journey, that some of my focus seems to more and more end up on the physical abilities side of things. This is ever clearer to me when I do things like mountain-biking with the boys, or think about the snow-boarding I'll do come the winter, and I want to be able to keep up and push myself like they do, and to be more agile and sure of my movements. I find the more little break-throughs I make with my fitness, the more I want to make.

I'm especially fascinated by blogs and videos of extreme sports on the internet. I look at the bike stunts and the wind-surfing tricks and I want to be able to do that kind of thing should I choose to. Last night I stumbled across Summer Gravity Camp, and I want to go and do it more than you could believe. It's an intense week of downhill mountain-biking that takes place at Whistler in Canada every year - coaching provided by some of the best bikers in the world for people of all standards from novice to expert - all you need is the biking bug and the balls to get out there and try it. Most of the weeks are aimed at kids and young people, but the last week of every season is an adults-only camp, and the more I read about it, the more I wanted to go - getting to goal would be a major step along the way to realising little dreams like that.

And one final thing I shall leave you with - a little trite perhaps but it works for me. While I was thinking about the whole stress-eating thing in the car on the way home, it struck me that that little saying about work, applies just as much to eating - so here's my thought for the day:

Eat to live, NOT live to eat.