Hunger Pains

I’d say my life has been interesting as of late, but I am not exactly sure interesting is the correct word I should use to describe it. My life has been complex and challenging and therefore it should be considered a victory every time I make a healthy decision. I tend to find something that is comforting in my life, like healthy and nutrition and hold on for dear life when other things get challenging. Why is the human brain so complicated? I mean, why is it that we can only seem to really handle one major thing at a time? When x is failing in my life, then y gets my attention and devotion leaving very little for z.

When my personal life is a mess, health and nutrition get my attention and devotion and this leaves very little of anything else to focus on things that might matter more like my job or money or anything really. It’s that ultimate things are spinning out of control cycle. Oh well I guess. My focus this week really is going to be on trying to bring things back into a balance of some sort. I know I can do better than I have been. And honestly, as I am well aware of, it only takes one good day to put you back on the right track.

Let’s talk weekend for a moment shall we. Once again from Thursday night pretty much thru to last night I continued to eat too much. The trainers all warned me that with continued strength training would come more hunger. I believe they were once again right. I seem to be hungry, like seriously want to eat and eat and eat kind of hungry all the time. I do pretty good until after dinner or thereabouts when I can’t stop the urge to just eat more and end up consuming beyond what I should. Right now my daily intake is set to 1500 calories per day. I hit that 1500 mark and then for four straight days it seems that an overwhelming I don’t care urge has overcome me and I eat another 300 calories or so for good measure. Oops. I will say this though I can think of the past 4 nights and what I ate that was beyond my caloric intake and I have to say my “binge” foods were all pretty healthy, just beyond the daily caloric intake. One night it was peanuts. The next night it was a chicken wrap. Then last night it was peanut butter straight out of the jar. I mean, it’s hard to get too mad at myself if these were the items I was craving and indulged on. Maybe I just needed the extra calories.

Honestly, my actual food consumption this weekend was pretty healthy. Both Saturday and Sunday I hate good quality stuff so it’s not as if I was exactly being bad. I will really excuse the excess calories ate on peanuts and peanut butter. Notice a theme there? I honestly am not really mad about it at all. I am just really making note of the eating habits as a way to document the reality that I’ve been hungry. I actually think its okay because I really am hungry. I am not eating because I am binging or eating crap because it’s there. I am literally hungry and I know my body is telling me to eat something else and I want peanuts or chicken so you know, listen to your body sometimes.

In terms of exercise I had a great weekend and that makes me happy. When I last wrote it was Friday morning after my awful Thursday night. No fun. I was desperate to workout Friday night and you know what? It was awesome. I felt great to get back to the gym Friday night, I really did. I ended up running. I knew mentally I needed a run after Thursday night. So I hit the treadmill for a 60 minute, 6.2 mile nice run. Afterwards I felt much better and then did about 20-30 minutes of arm weights. Perfect workout. 850 calories torched. Saturday morning I got up and headed to the gym for 9 AM Turbo kick. I love it when there ends up only being 3 people in class. Me, my mom and one other person. Basically it felt like an almost one on one session of turbo kick. It was really nice and ass kicking. Then afterwards I ended up paying for an extra one on one personal training session with the turbo kick instructor, Amanda. She is not my regular personal trainer but it’s nice to mix things up now and then.

Amanda kicked my ass which is exactly what I wanted. I went to her asking for an arm workout with dumbbells/barbells because she is so good at them. That is exactly what I got. An upper body targeted workout that honestly left me really sore yesterday. Perfect! I did about 550 calories in 90 minutes there. More importantly afterwards I felt like a total rock star. My arms felt pumped and alive. I felt addicted, which I love.

Yesterday I really knew I wanted to work out. I do have to wake up every single day and make conscious decisions to be healthy and exercise. Actually I woke up late. I slept in til almost 10 AM which is crazy for me, I must have been tired. Then I went and sat on the couch and turned the TV on. I watched about 45 minutes of the game show network, which is the biggest time suck of your life really and then at one point I had to just pause the TV and go, no, no more. I am NOT going to sit here and waste this beautiful Sunday morning like this. Enough. I must be active because my body demands it. So I got up, put on workout clothes. This pretty much almost instantly makes me feel better and want to be active. I actually adore my workout clothes so I guess that is a good thing.

I was thinking about going to the gym but I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do. My arms were sore from the arm workout and I wasn’t really wanting to run actually. Ultimately we decided that the beautiful weather called for a hike. So we loaded up a backpack and I put on trail shoes and we headed out. For some reason this year hiking has just clicked for me. I love everything about it. It’s beautiful out; you are isolated in gorgeous nature, but still close enough to civilization to see people and roads. You get fresh air. You get physical activity and work that is completely disguised as fun. It is amazing. We ended up hiking for about 3 ½ hours total. It was a pretty good pace for me. It was leisurely but still a workout. I don’t like to dilly dally. I like to move. We covered about 10.5 miles total and I burned about 900 calories. It was a beautiful perfect way to spend an afternoon. It was not a traditional workout, but it was still a workout. I was not sitting at home watching TV and that was the point.

Of course this meant that last night I had that uncontrollable hunger and peanut butter but that’s all right. I am not eating to lose weight these days, I am eating to maintain my healthy lifestyle, build my health and strength and satisfy my body. I think eating peanut butter is far better than eating processed crap that has no redeeming value for my body. I’ll take it as a win.

Today it’s back to the gym for me and I’m excited, as I always am. Tonight is personal training and then a 30 minute cardio sculpt class and then 30 minutes of turbo kick. That is the agenda for the evening. Of course I’m looking forward to it. I REALLY do love the way I feel about myself and my body when I exercise. It just gives me this confidence that is never there at any other time. It is truly amazing.

I have this mental image in my head of what I want to look like. I have the “after” picture rolling on repeat in my head. The after picture is me in a year, or rather next May, after a year of going to the gym, after a year of personal training, after a year of strength training, after a year of maintaining my healthy weight. It’s not that I’m going to quit after a year. I am never going to quit ever again. My confidence and resolve in this statement is growing each and every day. I actually believe it to my core that this time is the very LAST time. I say that because this time I have gotten myself off that repetitive loop I had been on for the last 10 years of my life. I actually was brave enough for the first time in my life to walk a different path and do something I was afraid of. I joined a gym. I am going to the gym. I love the gym. I have a personal trainer. I love personal training. I am taking classes. I love classes. Each of these things are things I was terrified to do. Seriously beyond terrified and now I am completely satisfied and in love. It really has opened my eyes to the possibilities in life. What else was I terrified to do that it could turn out to be one of the greatest loves of my life?

It’s an interesting concept really. I spend so much time in fear. I was afraid of a gym. We all know that I was terrified of personal training. And they my now my greatest joy and strength. What else is out there waiting for me that I can tackle? Is it a half marathon? Is it a full marathon some day? Or is it something else, greater that I can’t even see yet? I see the girl that I am going to become in my head and I am so in love with her. I can say that without reservation. I think it’s amazing to be able to say that you really love yourself. I am working on that concept. I don’t totally love her now, but I see her, I see her in my head and every single day I am working towards her. Pushing myself into new directions that I didn’t think I could go.

Today I am feeling inspired and blessed. Today I feel amazing actually. I can do this. Whatever life throws at me, I can do.