the oldest trick

I'm in on a training course right now. I should really be listening to the insightful learnings of the instructor but instead I'm distracted by my obsessings over the fact I ate the chips in my nasty boxed lunch they provided. It's quite honestly all I can think about.

I didn't intend to eat the chips, I'd very deliberately removed the chocolate bar but I hadn't quaranteened the chips with the same degree of care. Now I feel greasey and dirty. My jeans feel just that little bit tighter. The rolls of my stomach seem to fold just that little bit more prominantly. Worst of all I now feel completely driven to hunt out and consume as many calories as I can find.

Now I'm honestly not really that daft.

I know my metabolism and digestive systems aren't that fast.

I know nothing will be either solved or made better by eating even more.

I also know that I'm ALLOWED to eat chips.

I know better than this.

Food is neither bad nor good. It can be better and worse but it's *just* food, it has no power and can all be balanced. Chips at lunch might mean pass on the bread at dinner. I didn't lose 60 kilos without playing this balance to my advantage. I ate healthily and mindfully for two years. I wasn't on a "diet", I was actively living a healthy lifestyle. You can't sustain that much weight-loss by abstinance alone, well I personally can't, I'm too much of a binger and a craver. If I told myself I could never ever eat chocolate or chips again, when the road gets tough, when the weight loss slows down and the frustration goes up what's the very first thing I'm going to binge on... doh!

So then why am I feeling like this today? Why did I feel like this yesterday? Yesterday I did the very same; breakfast options were nothing but a bunch of cakes and pastries (I'm in America after all), lunch was the very same calorie loaded sandwich, packet of chips and a chocolate bar (it's not like I wasn't fully prepared and didn't know what to expect today), afternoon snacks meant more brownies and cookies and then back to the hotel for dinner. By the time I'd made my regretful breakfast choice I fell into the oldest trick in the book. I'd essentially decided I'd ruined the whole day so I might as well give up.

This is the very same scenario I've faced many times before while successfully losing weight. But back then I wasn't so easily tricked. I had the tools and techniques at my disposal to decide objectively what to eat and what not to and then most importantly how to feel good about that choice. I didn't feel like I was missing out on yummy goodies, I felt good about my greater goal and how good I was feeling.

So if I know all this - and I clearly do, I'm the one typing it after all - why doesn't it work right now? I still have the knowledge, I must still have the tools, I just feel like I've forgotten how to use them.

I feel like someone needs to switch the power button back on in my right-minded head because I'm watching myself drowning and rather than swimming to surface I'm that drunken person in the "Don't drink and swim" adverts frantically diving his way to the bottom of the ocean mistakenly thinking it's the surface (it might only be the Aussies who'll know that ad but I'm sure you can imagine it).

Thank you to the lovely people who commented to my post the other day. I fully intend to pop by and say so personally on your own pages when I'm out of this darn classroom and can browse freely.

And Yes - it IS Sunday
Yes I am mad to be on a training course!

It's way over a month since I had those great new intentions and so far all I've succeeded in doing is to increase my weight at the same rate as my anxiety levels.

I'm in the States for a month's training. I'm in a daunting new job, in a strange city on my own. I'm missing home and surrounded by more sugary goods than imaginable. For the first three weeks I was put up in corporate apartment housing and managed to get to the gym a total of three times. Since that first burst of effort I can't count how many times I've binged, overeaten and just full-out gorged myself.

I can't keep doing this.

I'm bored with myself.

I can't believe how many times I can fall over, manage to get up again only to fall straight back down. I liked it up there, why do I keep falling and why does it take me so long to get back again every single time. Sometimes I think I'm just too comfortable in the gutter. It's familiar; there's no challenge. You can't fail if you fail to try.

Well I'm trying and I could do with some help.