15 Days Later - Reality Vs Normality

2 weeks afterwards, the reality of returning to normality has hit home.

While I would like to think that my habits had changed, it was shockingly easy to allow myself to eat terribly and start to undo the work I had done. And in a surprising amount of time. In less than two weeks I had put back on approximately 6-7 kilos.

Chocolate and sugary foods were the worst culprits. Because I had so little in the last year I ALLOWED myself little splurges, (one or two pieces can't hurt too much on their own?, I can't keep it up and won't do it again!).

Apparently I am lying bastard. Now it might seem harsh, but the more I look at it the more I see that it's all on me. I chose to accept this and my choices put me on the path to eating rubbish when I simply don't need to and ultimately don't want to. No one was trying to get me back on the chuck-wagon, most people know better than to try and convince me of anything let alone direct me to do things I don't want.

At first I was okay with it, because I expected to put on some weight and I had said to myself that 85 kilos was a good weight, having been down to 81 and feeling that it was a little too thin, and even getting comments from others to that effect.

But then it kept going, and I found myself eating crap food without thought to consequence, or worse, thinking that because I had lost a tonne of weight already, I had wiggle room. My stated goal of having to never buy bigger size clothes was still the 'upper' limit of what I could do.

This simply meant I was making excuses for eating badly.

My body rebelled and punished me, it felt lethargic and weary and the aftereffects of eating crap showed up immediately. My mind though had plenty of patterns and habits to fall back on and I kept making excuses for it.

Just one more won't hurt, I'll plateau and it will stop, I'll take it more seriously tomorrow.

You would think after a year of hard (ish) work to get where I am, losing 45 kilos, disciplining myself without  fail and mostly without exception (I can count exceptions in a year on one hand ) that I would not be so fucking stupid and let that happen.

But I did, and was okay with it.

For about 2 weeks.


To me this what a drug addiction is like - just without all the scary and much more serious and immediate consequences? I don't actually know this for sure, and don't meant to belittle serious and life threatening  addictions in anyway - but this is a good metaphor for me. I have to treat myself to my own version of rehab.

So while I am not going back to the strict regimes of my Uber Diet and I am not going back to the diet roundabout of a diet a month, I am regulating my diet again. 

Maybe I have to do this for the rest of my life, it's not that hard and I still enjoy food and am far from the picture of a miserable and self hating dieter, but obviously it can be so easy to put it all back on again. Maybe that's hyperbole and I'd never put it ALL on, but why put any of it back on really?

I feel fantastically better when I eat well. I sleep better, its better for my wife and kids, it's just better full stop.

I do have to buy new clothes, but dammit I am buying them and getting ones that fit, not settling for having slightly bigger clothes that I know I can 'eat up to'

That way lies madness.