Eighty Twenty

Whatever way you embrace a healthy lifestyle ‘programme’, the end goal is the same. The goal is to be slimmer, lose the weight. Whether that is within a paid membership and support system like Slimming World or WW, or through meal replacement programmes like the Cambridge Diet, SlimFast, or even simply cleaner eating like MyFitnessPal the end game is exactly the same. Even with quick ‘faddy fixes’ like JuicePlus and Clean9, they still have the same aim in mind.
Whichever path you choose to venture down on your weight loss journey, there is one constant. The 80/20 rule. Some see this as 80% food, 20% exercise. Others say it’s eat healthy for 80% of the time so you can enjoy the 20% of less ‘healthy’ choices. Either way the idea is the same. In other words the 80/20 way is all about balance and moderation. Something that may not work as well in ‘faddy’ or ‘crash’ diets but still the idea is there.
To be fair, a lot of people use this as a ‘diet’ in itself. It seems to be structured more towards those who hate following strict food guidelines, don’t want to count calories or  simply can’t find the time to balance complicated macronutrients! But for those who want to actively lose weight, it’s best to find a more structured programme, like any of the ones above for example. Or as in my case, WW.

Both nutrition and exercise compliment each other and neither can do anything without the other. This means that without exercising, you will not end up burning calories of the foods you eat and without food, you will not have the desired energy for exercise. That said, you don’t need to do a combination, but it will just aid it. I mean, I lost it all the first time around with no added exercise, other than the standard ‘moving more’.
For many people, me being one of them, they believe more activity and exercise means more, faster, quicker weight loss results. No. It actually is 80% food, 20% exercise. While diet and exercise are both important for long-term weight loss, “You can’t out-exercise a bad diet”.

Now. Why am I rabbiting on like some new-found health ‘coach’. Ha. In your dreams.
This week, I seem to have taken this 80/20 ratio to a whole other level.

I have not done 80% food 20% exercise, well not, WW friendly anyway.
I have taken it more as:
80% exercise 20% food
80% bad food 20% good food
80% binge days 20% non binge days
80% eaten my emotions 20% pushed my emotions away
80% focus on the negatives 20% ignore the negatives
80%… you get my drift.

This is not healthy. Not for me, not for my hubby, not for my child. Not for anyone.

My week started off properly non motivated and bingeworthy. And this was on day one. On Thursday. I had my usual Clubbercise mirror hate, and by Saturday, the lack of motivation and just pure mental state was long gone and shot to sh!t. I really can’t explain how I was feeling, but even though I had a really positive weekend, and food wise was truly on it for those two days, my Saturday even consisted of a mini breakdown in Costa! Hubby tried getting out of me what was wrong, and I didn’t really want to talk about it but I had to. And it just poured out. I managed to keep myself composed, for the most part, until we got home.
I tried weighing daily again this week as it really did seem to help last week and seeing them going up and up was not helpful at all, to the point I gave up on Friday as well. Only 2 days into the week. Man. Ugh. Saturday and Sunday I was much better, and then to see them coming back down Sunday, really boosted me. But I was not ready for what my head space was going to do to me on Monday. Man oh man. The scales had obviously caught up, and gone back up, and I did not take this well. Even after opening up on Saturday I just could not get out of this funk. The mindset is totally messed up right now and I currently cannot see a way out.
It is simple. Eat healthy. Exercise. Don’t binge. Just do it.
4 sentences. 4 rules. That is all. FOUR.

Monday evening I did Zumba, Coach by Colour (Spin) and Aqua Circuits and I worked my ass offfffff. Like. Hard. Harder than I’ve done in a very long time. But I got home and thought you know what, I can’t even sit here and be proud of myself. This is not going to achieve anything. I am not going to have anything to show for this. One lady made a comment in Zumba about how good I look as she hasn’t been for a few months. I nearly laughed in her face but refrained and tried to gracefully thank her, even though those of you who know me, know I don’t do compliments!! So I’ll take that as a ‘win’ this week I guess.
Then Tuesday evening after BodyCombat and double Aqua, yes slipping that in there, I was talking to an aqua buddy about my issues this last week and she said unfortunately, as much as she wants to help me and be there for me, this issue is only something I can control and work out, and really need to sit down and tell myself, if I am truly desperate to lose and do this, then, I’d do it. I obviously don’t want it as bad as I make out, because if I did, I would. And she is right. I was not offended by what she said, and she meant no malice by it, she was just being honest with me. I have said this many a time before. And I’ll no doubt continue to say it going forward. I feel pathetic and silly, and yes, if I wanted it, I would just suck it up and just do it.
I say it’s not as simple as that, but in reality, it is.
What I’m ‘battling’ with is nothing compared to what a lot of people I know are going through right now and it does make me feel stupid for thinking so bad about it all. But, it does make me feel quite useless and like a failure. At the end of the day, they are my battles, and they are battles to me. I can’t just hide it away because it’s not as bad as someone elses. Excuse the pun but it does eat me up! The way it’s made me feel this week…. I hate it. And I hate that I can’t stop it. I hate that I moan about it, like the world’s ending and it really isn’t that big of a deal. It really isn’t. But I hate that I have given exercise my all again this week, and am so proud of that, but am so sick of letting myself and everyone else down. And having to kid myself and stop myself from being proud and shutting hubby down any time he tells me he’s proud of me. He shouldn’t be!! Nothing to be proud of. I want him to tell me he’s proud and I want to accept it & believe it to be real. And I know what I need to do, to believe. Yet can’t seem to stop. Again.

It’s like I constantly have to set myself up to fail. I don’t seem to succeed in much, and this is something else I’m doing, and because I have control over it, of course I’m going to stop myself from succeeding. As stupid as that sounds, and probably doesn’t make much sense. I feel like with things in the past, I’m always letting people or myself down, or not completing, or not giving it 100% and not reaching full potential etc, so this, this now, is my next ‘achievement’ that I’m giving up on before I’ve even begun. With my weight loss, the closest I got was what, 5-6lbs away from goal? And then what happened…. it went backwards. So of course 6 years later, oh god, don’t. That is horrific, six years later, I can’t even get back to there. Every time I have a good run or a few good losses, what happens. Look at me, six weeks in, not had a loss for 4 weeks!! I do want to, deep down I know I do. But apparantly can’t tell myself to 100% believe and achieve that.
I mean. It makes no sense. I know, I know. I don’t know what to do about it. Not right now anyway.

I suppose, amongst all this negativity I do have a couple of positives.

Two new tops. Stripes. I never have done stripes. Especially not horizontal. Horizontal on ‘curvy’ girls has always been a no no, what I’ve always been told. But even I know I don’t look the worst or the widest in this top…. am I right?!? Or am I wrong? Ok, got me questioning now…. hmmm. And the other top is a small fitted hoodie, with little Mickey faces all over, yes, Mickey. Shhh. Both of which are much shorter tops than I am used to. Again being a wider figured girl, not my go to style. But to me, these are wins. Wins for the week! Probably the only ones. So will take that!

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Incase you hadn’t of guessed yet…my food has gone shot to sh!t and this week has just been an emotional rollercoaster so…. as my meetings been cancelled AGAIN…. just tell us it’s closed, like indefinitely, ffs! Having been given advanced warning…. I totally took this news & took it upon myself to continue down the slippery slope of bingesville…. and boy did I.
So. No. No weigh in today.

Hopefully I’ll come away from this week and really think about what my friend was saying, and think about how focussed I’ve gotten with my exercise, which by the way, I was able to go and do another class this evening as there was no workshop. I went for another BodyCombat session. Who’d have thought a high-energy martial-arts inspired workout was right up my street eh!?!?! I mean. Come on, any exercise or class for me to be excited over, still shocks me now let alone anyone else! But exerting myself… really? One of the songs was split into 3 rounds, and each round consisted of mini combinations which each ended with 164 ‘jabs’ in one go….basically punching the air for a long time….a long long time. I did that. Every single one. That was one song. 7-8 minutes long. You’re in there for 60 minutes. So you can imagine. Such a stress reliever I must admit.

So I really am giving it 100% there, and this week maybe I can try to give 100% to the food. But not in the ‘lets do this for the next week’ sense.

Let’s just start with tomorrow.

-x-