Weekly Goal Review ——-> ——->

Just going through the blog pages and updating stats etc and I remembered the purpose of having a goal is to have step like prgression along a planned pathway towards that goal AND that evaluation and review is an essential element of those steps. When I first added those goals and weekly stats to the side bar of the blog I had intentions of sitting down once a week and doing a bit of a review session. then I promptly got distracted by the monster that periodically overcomes my brain and forgot all about it and the purpose behind it all. A bit of a metaphor for life over the past two weeks I think. Now, having a day off and having time to recoup – I look at it all and think to myself – I have made NO progress in the past two weeks and I will be lucky  to be fit enough at all to make the 21km in 16 days if I don’t smarted up my act a little bit.

A few months ago when I first started on this journey, I was so excited about achieving a goal, a personal challenge and making myself into a better, stronger person – somewhere along the way I forgot about all of that. I have been following Tim O’s journey to the Australian Ironman Triathlon 2008, which is in Port Macquarie this weekend. I was just reading his latest couple of posts and it reminded me that that was the kind of excitement and determination that I started out with. I was excited to be part of something active and healthy, I loved being part of the “Team” at intraining, I loved having something to work towards that was big. So what happened?

 I started telling myself that it wasn’t all that big or important, that I wasn’t doing anything all that special. Work messed my schedule around and I reacted to that poorly. In my mind I started to think that running 21km wasn’t all that big of a deal – it’s not like I’m running a full marathon or doing a triathlon is it? Part of me wants to be running a full marathon so that I would consider it to be something “Big” – but would the same thing happen again? Would I get more and more comfortable with the distance until I started thinking the same thing again?

I want to regain that ‘old’ thinking back again but I’m not really sure how. I think part of it comes down to going back to first principles and getting back into the same routines I had when I got on board this train. As for the thinking – well I’ll have to think that through a little bit more.

I wish that I had written about my feelings more on a week to week basis because now that I need to find the love again I really want to be able to recall the feelings and emotions I had two months ago.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not downplaying how far I have come in the past two  months – just trying to understand where I went wrong in my mind to lose it. It definitely has something to do with fear – because Feel the fear and do it anyway was very prevalent to me at the time.

Keep thinking Andjxx

Bingeing on Junk addictive apparently!

As found on The Australian website, by Nigel Hawkes, April 2, 2008.

THE “size-zero” obsession could be forcing women into extreme diets followed by periods of bingeing on junk food.

THE “size-zero” obsession could be forcing women into extreme diets followed by periods of bingeing on junk food.

Janet Treasure, of the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, says animal studies show that starvation followed by bingeing on highly palatable foods, such as burgers or chocolate, could alter the way the brain responded to food.

The fashion industry’s obsession with thinness put models at a high risk of developing eating disorders, and inspired imitation among the public, she said.

“There’s a tendency to break the diet when you see these highly palatable foods. That sets it up so you get into a cycle of intermittent naughtiness,” she says in an editorial published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

“It gets you into a momentum, hooked on that sort of cycle.”

Professor Treasure, a specialist on eating disorders, says the pattern is known as “binge priming”.

She says studies on animals, which simulated periods of self-denial followed by exposure to highly palatable foods, led to binge eating and to a susceptibility to addictive behaviours.

“If, after a period of food restriction, animals are intermittently exposed to highly palatable food, they will significantly overeat,” she says.

“This pattern continues when their weight is restored.

“This tendency to overconsume or binge when exposed to highly palatable foods remains several months after the period of binge priming.

“Translating into the human situation, we would predict that binge priming caused by irregular dieting and/or extreme food restriction, interspersed with intermittent consumption of snacks and other highly palatable food, might lead to permanent changes in the reward system.”

If this happened in adolescence, when the brain was more susceptible to rewards, it might lead to persistent eating problems, Professor Treasure says.

People exposed to binge priming might also be more prone to substance misuse, she says.

One US study found that among nine- to 11-year-olds, 30 to 40 per cent had eating disorder traits, such as being obsessed by their body image, Professor Treasure says.

The number who went on to develop an eating disorder was much lower – about 4per cent in women.

An Australian study found a threefold increase in all eating disorders between 1995 and 2005, but some of that increase was attributed to better identification of sufferers.

Professor Treasure says there is a link between autism and eating disorders.

Shared traits include an inability to see the “bigger picture”, heightened perceptual awareness and rigid thinking.

The Times

Registered

I am officially registered! So there is no backing out now! I have lost my mojo for running a little bit because I have so much else on at the moment. I think that I consider exercise to be an extra curricular activity that has to be scheduled in amongst the other things that go in the priority filing system of my life.  I know that it has to get the to point where the exercise becomes so much a part of life that it is something you just do and the rest of life has to fit in around it but I’m not sure how to get to that point. I guess that is what they mean when they say that the exercise you choose needs to fit in with your lifestyle – so that it becomes part of your everyday.

I do wish that all of the things that were going on at the moment weren’t. I feel guilty for leaving Mark home alone by himself when he is probably feeling a bit sad and upset that his mum has cancer. I feel a bit downflated when I get off the phone to Mark’s mum and sister – who want me to tell them that everything is going to be ok when I know that it isn’t very likely. I am not a very skilled counsellor either! I get HUGE amounts of guilt for going running or going to the gym when I know that I have 2 assignments due in 2 weeks time – sometimes it feels like there just isn’t enough hours in the day and I wish I could just put on part of life on hold (like sleeping or work) so that I can focus on the other parts for abit. It is difficult to find the right balance.

I do have tomorrow off work though and I plan to spend some of it by going for a run and some of it by writing one of the assignments – I have it all structured in my head – I just need to find some supporting documentation and write it. It is only 1500 words so I should be able to finish it this weekend.

Right now I am having one of my favourite things for lunch – gluten free bread toasted, cheese, tuna and tomato on top with salt and pepper. Yum!

Andjxx