Inspiration from Marcus Aurelius Antonius

"It is a shameful thing for the soul to faint while the body still perseveres." --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

I have been having a hard time recovering from last week. Last week was a recovery week, so what am I talking about? Well, last week I not only blew off training for nearly the entire week, but I let myself eat anything. I was really bad, eating fast food, ice cream and just all kinds of junk. It was pretty scary, and even in the last two days I have let my self eat way too much. My target is 2500 calories, but I have been eating around 4000.

How did this come about? Mostly I think it was a combination of stress from work, lack of time to think about or prepare food at home, and the fact that my regular routine was disrupted by attending court.

One thing I know about myself is that I have a one track mind. I can really only maintain control in one area of my life. Once I focus on that one area I can accomplish amazing things, but everything else tends to fall apart. For the last three months I have maintained my focus and dedication on my triathlon goals, and I am proud of that. But in the back of my mind I have a concern because I do not know how long I can keep this up. Balance is really the key, and I think one of the benefits of training for a triathlon is learning how to manage your life more efficiently and learn the discipline it takes to balance the various life demands that we all have, but I know that real balance is an issue for me, and something that I really need to work on.

Work demanded my attention and focus last week. It really was a test for me. Could I maintain focus and put in the effort to do what I needed to do at work and still keep the rest of my life in order? Well, I got the answer, and it was a resounding no! So now I am going back to put my training back in order. I had a good run on Monday, a good swim on Tuesday, and today I hit the spin bike hard for an hour. So I am back in the game as far as the training goes, but my eating patterns are still out of control. It is really hard to get back onto the path of eating right after enjoying a week long binge. Actually enjoying is not the right word. It was actually suffering. Eating all that bad food made me feel really disgusting and gave me a lot of gas. Then why do I eat all that stuff? In stressful situations I just eat compulsively. It does not make any logical sense and is something lurking in my subconscious that comes out in stressful situations, like when I'm worried about my family or my job.

It is all mental. The body is ready, but the mind is weak. Shame on me!

Ok, enough ragging on myself. Starting today I'll do better. Tomorrow, I'll bitch about Starbucks.

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