My Porn

I was listening to my radio show this morning when I heard the best description for why I love to watch cooking shows.  Cooking shows are my porn.  90% of what I see I will never eat or make myself.  But to see the ingredients come together, listen to the description of the food, and watch people eat it with pleasure gives me unending joy.  The creation inspires me.  Watching people enjoy what they are eating makes me happy.  Watching shows where the chef is making something laden with butter, sugar, gravy, grease, I know I will never make the recipe, but I love to watch the ooey, gooey, greasy, sugary, sinful goodness come together.  

Fortunately, I get the same pleasure in cooking and watching people consume my creation.  Actually, the pleasure is so much more extreme and long lasting when I do it myself than when I watch others.  Probably because I actually get to benefit from it.  I get to create.  I get to judge, and I like to be judged.  I get to pat myself on the back.

I like to pat myself on the back.  Wait a minute...that sounds really bad!  I also don't want help in the kitchen.  Oh boy this sounds really bad.  But I like watching people and the pleasure on their face as they consume my creation.  I am just digging a hole here aren't I?  

Well, everyone has their version of porn.  Admit it!

Time to Take a Break

When I find myself questioning why, it is time to step back.  When I find myself standing in the study for 10 minutes, debating on why I am about to put in a session on the bike trainer, it is time to think.  When I become critical of myself, hard on myself not for the lack of working out, but for what I eat, it is time to take a break.  

I want to train.  I want to work out.  I want to sweat.  I just have to remember why.  The why gets lost sometimes.  Sometimes the why is for the wrong reason.  The why becomes to lose weight, to be able to eat, to be able to say I worked out hard, to prevent guilt, because that is just what I do.

What happens if I stop?  What happens if I give myself a break?  Well, to go to the extreme, which is where my mind almost always goes:

I will gain 50 pounds

I won't fit into my jeans

I will fall back into the downward spiral of binge eating

How will I define myself?

I will never run again

What else will I do with my time?

People will think I failed

I will have failed

Now that all of that is laid out and looks extremely silly, what are the real reasons I train the way I do?  Why do I want to push myself and consume my time?

I love myself hard

I love the feel of accomplishment

I love to sweat

I love the way my body looks.  It is hard, shaped, sexy.

I want to compete.  Compete with myself, with others.  In order to be competitive I have to train.

I want to inspire others.  I want to inspire myself.

Because I have the ability to.  For 26 years I was a couch potato that didn't know there was an athlete inside.  I never want to contain that athlete again.

The time it takes is my time.  Time for myself.  Time to think.  Time to breath.

So now for the more realistic, sensible and honest things that will happen if I give myself a break.

My body will recover

I will have time for MM

I will have time for writing

I will have time for baking

I will have time to breath

I will have time to discover new things

I will have time for friends

Any time I begin to question myself, I also discover something.  I don't know what that is right now other than I am human.  My brain and my body will only be pushed so far before one or both of them puts on the breaks.  Red flags are thrown.  Hopefully I stop to do some discovery before I let the red flags become the evil critical witch that punishes me.  Punishment through injury, depression, binging, isolation, anger.

Last night as I was getting ready for bed, I planned out in my mind my workout for this morning.  It was all possible at that point.  The plan had a reason.  But when I got up late this morning, my initial thought was do the plan or face the consequences.  Those thoughts turned to why?  What would happen if I didn't complete my plan?  What would happen if I did something different or took it easy, or gave myself a break.  So I chucked the plan.  Actually, a part of me forced the chucking.  I could have done my plan, but I don't know my brain would have been any better for it.  So I went to the gym, put on my headphones and listened to my breath while I did yoga.  I felt my breath move through my lungs, into my belly and expand my back.  I felt my breath loosen my muscles and rinse the toxins from my brain.  I took a deep breath as I balanced and focused.  I allowed my breath to slow me down.

When I was done I did something else for my brain.  I came to Starbucks, got some tea, and started to write.