posted by Ashalah on Fitness

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I kind of had a break through in the middle of my run last night.

I was pushing myself hard; I hadn’t worked out the night before, the night before that was my frustrating failure of a workout and the results were feeling a little sluggish and lazy. (Even I’m amazed at the new attitude I have towards working out.) I have found that running helps clear my mind and more importantly–gets me out of it. I can get inside my own head and if I spend too much time wandering around in there I start going in circles and it never leads to good places. Luckily running helps break that cycle and brings me back out of my head and into a better place. Which is weird because the entire time I’m running I’m very much in my head, thinking of what’s going on in my life and trying to analyze everything.

Most of the time these analyzations are good ones–as opposed to the analyzing I do while sitting alone in my apartment on my sofa. These running analyzations usually are more positive, more optimistic than what I can accomplish while static and these mental processes usually last well beyond my run. Tonight I was analyzing my week. I’ve had a down couple of days where I’m just not myself and not feeling very happy. The only person to notice? My boss.

He was heading out to lunch, came past my desk, took one look at me and asked if I was okay, I seemed down. (This is the same bossman who bought me a cupcake when I broke up with B. I’m very grateful to work for who I work for.)

I have no reason to be down. It’s just one of those days, I guess. I can’t pinpoint one single reason I felt down. But this down-ness was causing me to beat myself up over how I’m not losing weight and seem to have put on a little bit of bloat. That wasn’t helping my mood one single bit.

I thought back over the week. The key lime pie I made that lasted about half the week, the carrot cake for my new coworker’s birthday, the chewy cake-like chocolate cookies our rep brought us, the gold and silver medal cookies I made for my BBQ, the Canadian chocolates I won from Peter in a bet. It was a lot of sugar. You know what I’d eaten for two weeks before that? Fruit. A whole lotta fruit. And those two weeks? I was really happy.

I ate sugar and I felt sad. I ate fruit, I felt happy. Sugar…sad. Fruit…happy.

DING DING DING.

It didn’t take me long to connect the dots. I mean, Nicole gave up sugar (something I’ve claimed I never could do because I LOVE to bake. BUT I may have found a way to cure that and not have to actually eat my goods!) and swears up and down how awesome her life is because of it. You don’t actually know what she could possibly mean until you go through it. Now, I don’t know if I could ever give up all sugar. BUT I need to limit it because clearly, it’s having an effect on me.

A negative, nasty little effect called THE SADS.

I don’t like to deny myself foods. It never really leads to success in my case–I tend to go without and then after a month or so go back to it with a vengeance and totally abuse the shit out of whatever I was denying myself. I know myself, I know how I work so I need to just limit what I eat. Maybe I have sugar once a week. Allow myself that one indulgence–and make it fucking good. Alton Brown was on the Dr. Oz show while I was home for Christmas and this is one thing that he said that really hit home with me. He has this program where you eat really healthy but you allow yourself that one dessert, as well as that one deliciously bad cocktail a week. He emphasized on the making your one indulgence a really good one.

Make it worth it, right?

I really like this concept. I am totally game for trying that approach.

At the end of my run I was determined that I was going to cut sugar back out of my diet and only have it every once in a while. It not only effects my weight, but it greatly effects my mood. I’ve really enjoyed the happy Ashley. I want her to stick around. So out with the old habits, in with the new.

Tags: I Should Listen to This, Reflection, running