"Have you been eating your carbohydrates?" That's the first question the nutritionist asks my father, but somehow her question resonates with me. Have I been eating enough to fuel my body? or have I've been neglecting my eating behaviours again? Looking back in the past two weeks I can see where I went wrong.
Stress and lack of time can help you justify bad behaviours, you tell yourself that only this time is going to be like this, even if it's the 5th time this month of you doing it. We get so wrapped up in our heads that we forget that it doesn't matter how much you work, if your body isn't healthy enough, you aren't going to get anywhere.
Think, when was the last time you felt irritable, sad, without energy? Now think if you drank enough water, ate enough or got enough sleep? You've got your answers and no matter how much you want to lie to yourself, the truth is going to be there and is up to you to change it or not.
I have to be honest here, I didn't realise that my lack of energy was because I wasn't eating enough, I blamed everything I could before accepting that my diet wasn't fitting enough for the amount of activity I've been doing lately. In my mind I was in a small deficit.
This is part of recovery I'd forgotten about. I wasn't prepared for this little bump along the way, food hadn't been a problem in the past two months and suddenly my mind is wrapped up in calories and nutritional facts. Being so aware of what you are consuming daily isn't always ideal.
One thing is to suffer from tiredness from your day to day activities, another is to feel fatigued hours after waking up. I was so tired most of the time that the only answer for me would be to take a nap. I wouldn't concentrate on anything else and my apetite wasn't indicating me anything, I wasn't hungry.
And one day you eat properly and everything clicks, your body isn't as heavy as before, you mind isn't as fussy. Maybe your problem isn't that you forgot to take your vitamins that morning or that your period was a week ago, maybe it was that you body wasn't fuelled enough.
This is a hard step, it's all about listening to your body and what it needs, if it needs more fuel, less of certain foods or if you are going on the right track. It takes time and a lot of effort, but the more you do it, the more you are going to show your body how much you care.
You eat to live not live to eat and food should never be seen as an enemy.