So I think I have talked about this topic before but not in detail, and that is that it is too easy to try to do too much too quickly when working toward achieving goals. Now I am aware there are people out there who will disagree with me on this but this is based on my own experiences. In that same thought though I know that I can not be the only person who has had this difficulty or gotten overwhelmed by this. Working toward a goal in health and fitness you start to notice all the other things around you that you need or feel like you should change. Now I have had both negative and positive experiences in regard to this. There have been many times in the past when I start on a journey and I get so excited or feel like I should also do all these other things then when I am not able to do them I got really discouraged. It has taken a long time to learn how to do these things differently, the positive experiences I have had are a small change here and a small change there. Even on days when I am not able to make that particular goal, I am not discouraged, and rather the positive effect that I had when I did reach that goal carries me through to try again.
As I have been reaching toward my goal to run 5k it has become more and more apparent again that I also have an unhealthy relationship with food. No new news there but making lasting changes in this has been a struggle for me. Now I do know that part of the problem is that I just flat out often eat too much which goes into psychological stuff that I do not have a degree to get into. What I do have though is my experiences with what I have tried, be it not very much. What has worked for me and what has not or just the outcome. It took a long time for me just to be able to own up that I like food. Now I know that is not a bad thing but when I would try restrictive meal plans I always wanted what I was not supposed to have. Which lead me to try intermittent fasting, this was something I did see success in the dropping of pounds. It is always nice to see lower numbers on the scale. What intermittent fasting did do that other plans did not was slowly made me aware of what I was putting in my body. During the height of the progress, I had with intermittent fasting the bad food choices I was making became clearer. I only had set hours to take food in and I was choosing to use those hours to put sugar and unhealthy things in my body. I fell off the bandwagon with intermittent fasting but a few of the parts of it stuck around. Such as not starting eating till around 11 am. The changes that stayed even though I do not do intermittent fasting anymore were so small and happened in a way that made them last, it wasn’t something that freaked me out. For example, it is getting to the point where I am missing my cool crunchy vegetables.
Obviously changing what I eat different problems have arisen. These problems are not in relation to finding out about food or anything like that. In retrospect it actually seems quite simple, when I was making the change because I was hyped up from the success I was feeling toward the fitness goal I would get overwhelmed and that would be detrimental to both goals. When I was just doing a diet to lose weight as I have mentioned before I do not like restrictive diets and it took me a long time to understand that I just really like food and that was part of my problem with restrictive diets. That and little self-control, which I am working on. Now on the flip side when I have learned to actually listen to my body and what it wants in relation to food I have seen success in making changes and actually found a couple of new go-to items. As well as items that get rotated in and out, though they are bad for me they are also a guilty pleasure.
I do not know that I would go so far as to say there is a solution that I have found to my issues with making healthy food changes. At the same time I am finding if I listen to my body then it will me what it wants, and 9 times out of 10 it is healthy things that it wants. I am learning to be more successful with listening to my body because I often go for what is considered easy or a mixture of easy and what I am craving. Though that is not to say that I get it right or that it makes sense. A lot of trial and error is going into that part. I still have cravings for unhealthy foods the same as anyone else though. I do not know anyone who does not have cravings for what are considered sometimes foods so do not even try to convince me that you are someone like that. I have learned through a lot of time trying to suppress cravings and feeling like I am being told to stop having cravings that that does not work and personally I do not think is smart. I have found when I suppress a craving for a long period of time it just grows and then I end up pigging out on a lot of food that I should not eat. Learning when to stop eating is also something that I am working on but that is a different post.
For as long as I can remember for some reason the talk of change in my diet has always overwhelmed me and had me shy away from certain things. Now though while I do still struggle with these changes on top of maintaining fitness goals; I have made of point of reminding myself that as of right now dietary changes are not my focus. My focus has been working on running a 5k and because of that, I have seen my turning toward water just in general increase but more of an ability to slow down and check myself as to how food is affecting me. Thus not letting the idea of change cause fear, or overwhelm me to the point that I just stop. I know most experts would recommend making healthy food choices during this but I am going to be real every time I have had the focus on both for me it just doesn’t end well. Which has led to trying this one change or step at a time.
I know as I am making small steps of progress toward my goal of running a 5k there may be other changes that want to occur. I may have to figure out a way to make it work or if it is worth the struggle to integrate without getting off the rails and keep putting pressure on me to meet my goal. Pressure is not bad if it is the right kind and helps fuel your goals. I have had a positive experience with this before due to my stubbornness helping fuel the goal I am working toward. This is not just in reference to my current fitness goal but other goals in my life as well. I do not know if pressure is the word other people would use to describe the feeling of fuelling the desire to accomplish the goal. The reason I bring this up is this feels different than when changes happen and I get overwhelmed and discouraged. There is a passion when I feel like I am not letting something stop me rather than the feeling of being overwhelmed.
Changes are scary and can be overwhelming or add to an already overwhelmed feeling. Let alone feeling like I need to change in addition to reaching my fitness goal. Some changes can act as a seamless transition other changes will take a lot of work. I am not someone who deals with a lot of change well so it tends to go negative for me from my perspective at first. If I stick with it which is rare the change may stick around for a while but that is even not a guarantee. When it does stick around though and gets into a bit more of a habit-formed stage even if the habit does stick around long term the nagging feeling in the back of my mind does help to make a seamless transition into maybe a smaller change that I find more manageable or helps fuel me toward a goal that I have been working toward.
Lemons or Lemonade 