Epic Fail

I promised myself when I started this blog that I would chronicle everything. The good and the bad. Well today is bad. I'm hungry. Not that little pang in the stomach hungry. I'm talking about the kind of hunger that is constant no matter what you eat and consumes your thoughts.

The worst part about the hunger is that I caused it. It's all my fault. You see, when you feed your body deeply nutritious foods on a regular basis, you really shouldn't be hungry when you are losing weight. That has been my experience so far. I listen to my body, eat nutritious things, and exercise. No hunger.

Yesterday I made a series of very bad choices.

Yesterday was a big family outing. I took the kids to an amusement park with my cousin and her son. The park was a few hours away and the day was very long. I started out making good choices. I woke up early enough to take a nice long walk and to drink my Shakeology before leaving. I even made a plan to stop at Wendy's before entering the park to have my favorite salad for lunch.

That's when the good choices stopped. I didn't pack snacks. Not even one. We were running late and I wanted to get on the road. I made a quick trip through the drive through at Dunkin Donuts for the kids' breakfast and we were off.

The kids fell asleep in the car so we didn't make any stops. I ate a small package of "emergency almonds" that I keep in the car but by the time we got to Wendy's two and a half hours later I was pretty hungry.

I ate my salad as planned and I was pretty happy with myself.

Did you know that healthy foods are pretty scarce in the average amusement park?

Well they are. I somehow got it in my head that it was better to not eat than to eat junk. I let myself get hungrier and hungrier. At one point, I ate half of a soft pretzel. BAD choice. Pure empty calories that are 100% fast carbs. I went from low blood sugar to rollercoaster blood sugar. Fast carbs on an empty stomach is a big no-no for weight loss. There were no healthy dinner choices in the park so I decided to wait until we left to eat. Other than a few bites fried dough, I had nothing else all day.

I was starving by the time we stopped for dinner at 8:30. Really starving. I had a chicken salad and some grapes. I thought all was well again.

I COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE WRONG!

You see, our hunger mechanism is designed to keep us alive in times of famine. Basically any time you are hungry and you ignore the hunger and don't feed your body, your body freaks out and thinks you might die.

That's what my body thinks right now. You see, my body cannot comprehend any reason why I would walk past tons of food while I was hungry. It can only assume that no food was available all day. I had a one day mini-famine.

Since my body does not want to die, it's going to make darn sure I eat every calorie I can find today.

ENTER HUNGER AND CRAVINGS...

Today I am hungry moments after eating. It's a ever present hunger that has me constantly thinking of food. I also have cravings. Chocolate, fast food, fried rice. I'm craving all those things at the same time right now. It's not my body's fault. I made the choice not to eat. My body just wants to avoid starvation.

I should have eaten something in the park. A wrap, a burger. Anything is better than starvation. When your body perceives starvation, hunger and cravings kick in and your body drops your metabolism like a rock.

So basically you want to eat constantly and you burn nothing. Sounds like a recipe for diet failure, right. That's what most people do on a diet. Kind of scary to think about. What happens when your metabolism is in the basement and you start to EAT again? You store fat. Lots of fat. Nice protective fat to insulate your from another famine.

Today, I am paying the price for yesterday's epic fail.

I have a choice to make. I can try my hardest to repair the damage or I can give in to the cravings and pig out on junk.

I choose the hard road. I am going to fix this. I am going to forget about weight loss for the day and forget about calories. I will need to eat very frequently. I will avoid junk and eat salads, veggies, meats, beans, and nuts. Lots of high nutrient, high protein foods with slowly absorbed carbs. I will probably have a second serving of Shakeology to give me an extra dose of intense nutrition. I need to even out my insulin production an show my body that food is available.

Instead of 3 small meals and 2 snacks, I will eat a series of small snacks every hour or so as well as my three small meals. Tonight I will do my usual workout. Tomorrow it will be business as usual.

Next time I will pack snacks and make a plan. I never want to do this to myself again.