Sunday, April 30, 2017

Reality & Balance

Man oh man, I sure didn't realize how tough adjusting back to a normal and balanced routine would be after competition. I heard about it and what the best way was to go about it with reverse dieting, but I didn't realize how hard it really was physically and mentally.

The day after competition I was able to sit and enjoy meals with my family and not feel like I was ruining something. My family was in town for Landon's birthday party and I could enjoy that cake and those beverages and I was able to enjoy Easter dinner with everyone. It felt amazing to just be able to have a plate full of food that wasn't cooked separately from them and get to have the same satisfaction they had from the ham, rolls, potatoes, and green beans.

However, after that day, I was a struggle bus. I was given my macros to follow for reverse dieting and my first thought was, this will be easy because I have followed macros for the past 14+ weeks. How hard can it be to follow those macros to reintroduce everything back into my system and do it correctly? Well let me tell you what, it was a lot harder than I had thought. It was like I had unleashed a beast inside of me after tasting the most wonderful and flavorful food that the beast refused to be locked up again. I had all of the temptations right there in front of me that I had during prep but why was it so much harder to not have them now? It wasn't just a little bite of this and a little bit of that. Between the Easter candy, the cake, the treats, the carbs I just couldn't resist it. I would go to work and be okay because I had my prepped food with me, but when I would get home it all went down hill.

After eating like this all of last week, I knew what I was doing was wrong. I could see my body changing. I could feel my clothes becoming tighter. I knew this would happen eventually but I definitely sped up the process with my lack of control over those few days.

I know that my body the day of competition or even the day after looked amazing and I also know that the weight I came in at is not a healthy weight for me to maintain. I slowly dropped weight from 165 in December to 142 on competition day. My body was happy for over a year at 157-165 and that was where it wanted to be and I was always good with that because even though the scale wasn't moving, I was seeing change in my body the whole time. But seeing what the body can achieve in 14 weeks and losing that weight plays tricks on you. I saw a whole new body and even though I know it wasn't a healthy body and water depleted, I liked what I saw. So the mental game here is that I have to realize that I have put the weight back on in a very short amount of time and my body looks different. My inner body is not happy with me because of the choices I made and those foods played havoc on me. But I am back to looking fuller and just trying to find balance.

I did some photo comparisons last week and that is when it finally hit me and all made sense to me. Comparing my body at the end of the year (12/31/16) and weighing in at 164 to weighing at 162 a week after show day, my body is different. My shoulders are still defined and my abs and mid section changed.

Then I look at photos of me from the day after competition to the day I weighed in. And I didn't really realize how lean I was and unhealthy looking at the same time. I can't look like that all the time.

So mentally, I honestly found the week after the hardest part of the whole thing. It wasn't the 14 weeks of 6 days a week in the gym and the meal plan. I wasn't deprived of food or starving. I was changing.

In a nutshell, I have found my love and sanity in fitness and next I just have to find balance. I've had balance before and I can have it again. I can enjoy life and foods and be okay with that. I will continue to grow as a person and physically as I continue.

I wanted to make sure I got this post out because this past 2 weeks has been hard. All I could think was how bad I fucked up doing what I did. But I didn't. What's done is done and I'm back to normal. I've had a lot of success that I didn't think I was going to on this journey but I've had a lot of struggles too. Most struggles I don't talk about because I know people look to me for inspiration so I feel like I can't show the hard parts sometimes. But my life isn't perfect and my journey isn't perfect. Every day is different but everyday I try to make the best choices by going to the gym and trying to eat right.





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