Extreme

When it comes to weight management, I have never been able to be middle of the road. I'm either all the way on, or all the way off.

When I'm losing weight, I'm perfect.

I eat perfectly, no cheating. Not even a morsel. To the point where I have myself convinced that I don't struggle with food at all. I can spend hours in my kitchen, creating amazing meals and treats for people like it's a craft project--a work of art, and yet I won't touch it. Won't even want it. It makes me feel like I have beat it. Being around it, smelling it, experiencing it, and not tasting even one bite. I rock.

I exercise. Hard. At one point in my life I was working out 4 hours every day in the gym. I feel good when I do that, to tell you the truth. I mean, I feel great. I'm the kind of person who will get on the treadmill or the elliptical and just go for it. But if one day I walk 3 minutes and run 1, the next day I have to walk 3 minutes and run a minute and five seconds. Push just a little bit harder. Increase that incline just a little bit more. Burn just 20 more calories than I did yesterday. I can do it, I tell myself. No holding back. I push, and I push, and I push, and I push. I can't ever just let well enough alone. My workout is no good if it's only as good as what I did yesterday.

Eating perfectly and killing myself exercising feels AMAZING. On top of the world. I swear I will do it forever, because it feels so great. But I never do. I always end up tripping myself up and quitting.

And then I go very quickly to the other extreme.

The one where I don't follow any rules or guidelines whatsoever.

Now that I have identified that pattern in my life, I realize that I have to fight it.

When I am ready to really work on my eating habits, I need to try and develop realistic guidelines. Guidelines that keep me eating a nutritious, well balanced diet of proper proportions, allowing a little treat here and there. My problem is that when I cut things completely out, I eventually want them so bad I go crazy on them. But when I do allow myself to have a little, I can never just stop after a little. And so you see the challenge.

When I am ready to start an exercise program again, my challenge is going to be to force myself to stay with the same thing for a month or two before I try to increase anything--and then make a reasonable, livable increase, and stick to that for a while. I have to be disciplined enough not to push myself too hard.

And so I battle the extremes.