Back to basics

It feels like I've be flailing around trying to get my eating "back on track" for most of this year. I've also recently been injured and unable to run and that's gotten me thinking about my future running aspirations. The combination of these two things has meant I've spent a lot of time this weekend thinking about what it is I really want. What was it I was trying to achieve when I first started this journey over a year ago? The answer is simple, really, I wanted to - 

Free myself from binge eating and develop a healthy, happy relationship with food and my body.

I did really well with that for a while, but then I started thinking about actively trying to lose weight again - when I think about when the wheels started falling off, it was early this year when I started counting calories and weighing myself again - sure, I was working with a sensible calorie target, but it still set me back on the pathway towards the binge and restrict cycle, towards feeling like I was on or off track. More recently with my running I've been thinking a lot about how much easier it would be if I was lighter and feeling the weight (real or imagined) of my own and other people's expectations of how much smaller I should be getting now that I'm running so much. I've noticed that my worst days for eating are the days I've stepped on the scales.

I can feel that I'm stuck in "last supper" mode, eating all I can now because I'll have to be "good" tomorrow.

The running thing is also complex - after I did so well running 5.7km at the Gold Coast a few months ago I started thinking about the 10km in October and then the possibility of a half marathon next year. But the thing is, when I think about my fitness goals, I don't picture myself finishing a marathon looking long and lean, instead, I picture myself looking strong, lifting heavy stuff in the gym, showing off my arm definition in a tank top and smashing through boards without hesitation at taekwondo, but both those things have taken a backseat to running recently - It's hard to get the balance right, and I feel like I'm doing lots of things at once but none of them particularly well!

As it stands, I know I'll get through the 10km in October but it just won't be as quick as I was hoping. I'll reassess my running goals after that - who knows, it could just be the injury taking!

In the meantime, I've realised that I've never really given myself a proper chance to really heal from my disordered eating and find that elusive, natural place where everything, my weight, my food intake, just stabilises on it's own.

So, my mission for the next couple of weeks is to get back to basics. I'm going to:

- break up with the scales (again)

- get back into a mindful eating practice - keeping a journal of hunger and fullness, trying to mostly eat when I'm hungry and stop when full, taking a few deep breaths to centre myself before i start eating, and putting my cutlery down between bites 

- move my body everyday

- spend 10 minutes on meditation each day

I know that this works - no more flailing around searching for the answer! No more getting lured in by quick fixes and numbers, I've deleted the calorie counting apps from my phone and unfollowed weight loss pages on Instagram. I'm going to go back to focusing on, reading about and filling my newsfeed with body positive stuff and doing the work of recovery.