Thursday 30 August 2012

Stupid dieting crap I've done (yay!)

I was reading a great Paleo blog yesterday about ridiculous diets we put ourselves on and it got me thinking about my eating history. 

So although this isn't original, I've done a few different diets so I thought I'd take my own stroll down chubby-struggle lane...

The 'beat up your mates for Twisties' diet

 

Bless my mum - she loves me very much but her own weirdness with food was passed on to me at a very young age, starting with the 'no junk food' mantra at home.

There's something to be said for 'normalising' junk food by not forbidding it or spitting at it when you pass it or telling small children that Satan will spring forth from the Tim Tam and such. My mum never allowed me to eat things like Twisties... so when I opened my lunchbox and saw another effing banana sandwich on wholemeal bread I generally tended to tell a random play lunch mate to 'hand over the Twisties and I'll be your best friend'.  Twenty minutes ain't a long time to have to hang out with the dude that smells like poo. I mean, it's Twisties, FFS.

The 'I'm going to hell but it's worth it' or 'Chocolate Sleeves' diet


No chocolate in the house, no pocket money = sneaky chocolate bar up the sleeve.  This was around age 13... On the way home from school I would be consumed by a deep passionate desire for the good stuff with the purple wrapping.  Desperation, oversized school blazer, excellent bullshitting skills all made for an easy theft.

I am paying for my sins through a 15 month age-gap between my two children. Ask someone who knows. It's horrific.

The 'I can't believe it's not food, oh wait, yes I bloody can' diet


Nutrisystem.  Nommy nommy powdered sweetener and powder with sweetener. I think the main reason I lost so much weight on this diet is because my body was rejecting the alleged food matter and starving itself in protest.... I was around 15 when I was on this diet.  It still exists in the United States. God help The America.

The 'trust me, I'm a doctor' diet


Again, Mum - cheers. Love you.

In my late teens I gained some 'study weight' which I actually probably should have attributed to 'beer, burgers and bongs'. But whatevs.  My mum offered for me to go and see her 'wonderful doctor', a local GP who specialised in weight loss. He was very good. All I had to do was severely restrict my calorie intake.  Oh yeah, and do some speed cos it's not natural to just starve yourself (pfft!).  30mg of 'Duromine' a day did wonders for the size of my bum but nearly destroyed my sanity and personal relationships. Oopsies.

The 'finger food at a bogan's 21st' diet


Okay so this was supposed to be Atkins but I frankly couldn't be arsed eating cucumbers and lettuce so I just ate a lot of cheese and kabana off toothpicks.  I was training in Taekwondo 5-6 times a week back then - this was a sheer desperation 'need to drop a weight division' stunt. I got kicked in the head for the first time in my life about 2 weeks in and decided to eat a kilo of pasta a day for the following two weeks to correct the balance of the universe...

The worst-most-disgusting-crap-thing-ever-not-even-a-diet-why-did-I-do-this!?


A certain 'liver-cleansing' expert had a clever book with great advice, including 'detox your liver by drinking a glass of olive oil'. 'Mix it with citrus juice to make it more palatable' - I was told. 'Sure' I complied.... I don't know if you've ever tried to drink orange juice in cup full of olive oil but I can tell you from experience it's possibly the worst and most revolting thing you ever could do to yourself, aside from trying to bleach your own anus whilst inebriated.

Oh yes- and any weight loss was directly attributable to the incessant post-drink vomit.

It's not always crazy...


To be fair, I have tried 'normal' diets like Weight Watchers and had some success. It was always short term though - there was always a 'cheat' factor or a bunch of rules that were very restrictive or obsessive. I've also tried various exercise programs and techniques that either left me feeling exhausted or very bored.

It wasn't until I found CrossFit and Paleo eating that I managed to create some lasting change.

I'll be coming up on one year since I started on my current journey so I'll post some photos and statistics soon.

Meh.






Tuesday 7 August 2012

The insanity that keeps me sane...

Hello - long time between posts... what can I say? I've overcommitted with school, kids, work, health etc - what's new?

About 18 months ago I didn't have anything to fill my day aside from two needy little ones and a lovely view from my apartment window of Toulouse's snow-covered hills and leafless trees.

one of the many walking tracks near our home in Pouvourville - not easy to traverse with a twin pusher and two freezing babies...


Now I have days and nights packed with activities that seem endless and exhausting.

The last two workouts at my CrossFit gym have been kind of ridiculous. Insane, if you will. 300 rep workouts each night - which, even if you use a light weight, are very tiring.

But the fatigue is really a small price to pay for the benefit.  And I'm not talking about nice bottoms or lung capacity here - these workouts train my brain and literally keep me sane.

Imagine, if you will, that you are faced with the prospect of 75 deadlifts at 60kg (reasonable attempt for a newbie female doing Mr Joshua).  That's a shitload of weight to pick up and put down 75 times.  If, instead, I told you to pick it up 15 times and bugger off and do something else and come back again, you'd probably say 'that ain't too bad...'.

This 'breaking it down into bite-sized morsels' transposes well into daily life.  If I feel that I'm in Toddler Hell at 4pm on a Thursday I can re-assess the situation, break the afternoon into manageable activities and just push on through without having to hit myself in the face with a frying pan.

If I'm eating well but getting strong cravings for poisonous foods I can tell myself that 'this too shall pass' - because it does and it will.  Against all odds, I have made it through every CrossFit workout I have ever attempted (we're on about #60 now) without fading away, dropping dead or morphing into a blob of sweat on the floor that never regathers into human form.  If I can do 100 back squats, 50 burpees, 200 push ups or some other crazy fitness bullshit then I can certainly cope with a myriad of other challenges life cares to throw at me at any moment.

To be clear - this is not about willpower or discipline. CrossFit has taught me that I am capable beyond my wildest dreams.  This means a lot to someone who has regarded their body as an immovable garbage tip for over a decade.  No, I can't do a muscle-up. But I know that one day I will.  I can't do most of the workouts anywhere near record time.  But one day I might come close.

More importantly for me, the changes this sport has made to my thinking and my brain chemistry means that I am almost certain I won't be in the same headspace I was in during that long winter in Toulouse.  The winter that culminated in a severe depressive episode that could well have ended my life and denied me the opportunity to experience the highs, and requisite lows, that it brings me today.

So to those of you who think CrossFit is a crazy pursuit I say 'hell yeah!'. 

But I'm alive and well today to tell you that it's more than worth it.