First up - today's weight check. I was confident that I would see some progress - there had to be, with all this food I'm eating! But the scales had only moved imperceptibly, perhaps not at all. I thought I had seen a slight increase but at the clinic today my weight measurement was recorded the same as my last visit - two weeks ago. After chucking in a "colossal" amount of extra fuel....no real change.
So the problem has to be the exercise. And I find it so so hard to break the gym habit. I can manage one full day's rest a week but have struggled to make it two. The trouble is, I rationalise that "weight training isn't as hard as cardio so my weight training session counts as a rest really...". It may not even come down to a case of how much I do or don't do exactly. As I have come to believe, intense exercise puts the body into a state of "stress", as it cannot differentiate between a fierce workout in the gym and being chased by a lion. If I constantly subject my body to this treatment, without building in adequate time for recovery, how can I expect it to relax enough to start investing in laying down reserves of fat and muscle again?
It was easier to cope with when I just blindly obeyed the voice that compelled me to march to the gym every day. But now that I am aware of time running out, part of me is starting to fight it. Monday evenings are the worst - I come back from a long day at work, tired, exhausted and yearning for sleep but no, to the gym I must go for "a few weights and a bit of cardio" - and this was meant to be my rest day! I usually end up sobbing on the floor of the changing rooms until I finally give in, so spent that all I can do is go through the motions on the machines until I can finally go home, embarrassed and feeling utterly degraded.
I am fed up with feeling how pointless and futile my life is - how pointless and futile I, MYSELF, have made it. I am now at the point where I cannot even IMAGINE how it is to be free from incessantly worrying about food and whether calories in = calories out. I go to the gym and work out just so I can eat, but I don't even enjoy food anymore. I feel as though I am just putting food in my mouth for the sake of it. There is no taste anymore. Even the ice cream cone I had for supper last night (calorie counted of course!) just tasted of cardboard mush.
Last weekend, I went to see the film "He named me Malala" about the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot by the Taliban for demanding that girls be allowed to go to school. Her courageous story put me to shame. I was seized with such a yearning to live for a cause bigger than me, to be able to selflessly dedicate my life to a cause as she has done. Oh, how can I live with myself , I with everything handed to me on a plate, in this land of opportunities - and who have retreated into a self-absorbed world of consumption?
But I still hope that my diet plan WILL have an effect in time - after all, I don't know what, if any, internal organ damage needs to be addressed before any fat deposits can go on. If there is no change come next week though, I need to make myself uncomfortable. I keep telling myself that I might feel bad for missing a gym session but I will feel a whole lot worse if I lose my PhD! In the meantime, I am going to arrange a system with the instructors at the gym so that I check in and out with them each time. That way, they can make sure I can't be tempted to keep adding more things to my workout sessions: I do what I tell them in advance I will do, then LEAVE.
Phew! With all that, I will have to post my update on the walk later on this week. But I will leave you with this picture, which I found last time I went home. I drew it during my last relapse as a reminder of those darkest nights when I would lie in bed, bone pressing on bone, yearning to sink into the oblivion of blissful sleep but knowing I would wake up with aches all over from where the mattress pressed into my frame.
I can't go there again. I WON'T.
No comments:
Post a Comment