I Love Food

It was Sunday morning and I woke early to an alarm that was purposely set for 4:45am.  I'd had overnight guests who were hitting the road early and I'd wanted to see them off.  Hugs, kisses and well wishes were over rather quickly and I was wide awake.  Sunday classes don't start until 8am so I had quite a bit of time on my hands.  That's a switch.....Rising early for my morning exercise routines has been getting harder and harder lately.  Staying faithful to healthy eating has been a struggle as well.  It wasn't until recently that I tied those two facts together.  

When I started this journey back in May I was faithful to plan eating and faithful to exercising 4-6 times per week at 4am.  I've battled with food all summer long and now that fall is upon us things are no different.  I dropped 10 pounds.... then as much as 19 but I'm back at that point where I need to lose that last 10.  My exercise routine has not wavered.  It's the damn food.  I love food.  I love to cook and I love to eat.   

I don't eat a lot of food but what I do enjoy eating is bulky carb-filled foods.  There's nothing leafy or green about it.  It's starch and gravy and bagels etc.  Having said that it's not that I've even gone overboard with it, it's the fact that when I eat even one portion of the wrong kind of food it really creates havoc in my body such that I'm not hungry for the next meal or even the one after that.  I'm busy too so if you add not being hungry to a busy schedule what you get is meal skipping.  When you skip meals your metabolism shuts down.  That's me in a nutshell.  I went from 5 small healthy meals a day and 3 litres of water to maybe one or two meals a day and lots of coffee.  Not good.

I told my trainer, Chris Engel, about my battle.  She got right on it.  We have fairly consistent conversations about it.  She draws me in to conversations about what workouts we'll do, what I feel I need to fine tune on my body, etc.  We talk about recipes and meal planning.  It may sound crazy but I needed to be reprogrammed.  It happens to the best of us.  Your body is a machine, a mind driven, fuel consuming muscle machine.  If your head isn't in the game, the machine can't run efficiently.  If you don't put fuel in the engine, it just doesn't run.  It's really that simple. 

This battle isn't new to me and it certainly isn't over.  Thankfully I've never been obese but I have always struggled with 10, 15 or 20 pounds.  It could just as easily be 100 pounds.  The battle is the battle and you approach it the same either way.  One day at a time, one meal at a time and one workout at a time.  You just have to keep going and that's exactly what I'm going to do.

XO

Michelle

+My Baked Stuffed Life

+Michelle Morrissette Cucchiaro