Out of control

I just finished my first of four competitions for this year. I have trained for the Northern Kentucky since December and have been very strict with my eating for over three months.  I was very proud of how I did ,in spite of taking fifth place, and felt I had done very well. Following the competition, I planned to give myself a guilt free week and was going to eat many of the things I had not had in many months. I started with a good steak on Saturday night and was quickly reduced to many of the crappy things I haven't eaten in months prior to this competition.  I love Oreo cookies and I have good memories associated with them. My father and I share  a love of them and would often eat them together. I decided I would have them as part of the wrap up of my "guilt free" week. This week consisted of eating things like pancakes , french fries and coffee with cream although I "deserved" the break my body suffered greatly. My system has revolted and I have not felt well. Pair that with a week filled with emotional issues of feeling out of control and I have just not felt like myself. Nonetheless, I planned to have the Oreo's and chose to go with the bite size bag and not just a big cookie package- risky move for sure to bring home over 2500 calories in a cookie I love. I bought a small bag with 850calories in it. Definitely I ate all of it- yes. scary but true, Jolene the personal trainer, competitive body builder and someone who knows better ate a bag of Oreo cookies. I must tell you however, it was not as I had hoped. I laid in pain on the floor of my gym trying to make sense of what I had done. I had the worst headache that couldn't be cured and felt sluggish. I wanted to be sick but knew that I needed to connect this feeling with food that does my body no good. I suffered for about two hours until the headache went away and swore I wouldn't do that again.

I learned a lesson with my guilt free week- there is no such thing. I also learned that now the comfort food I had relied on in the past was no longer a comfort. It dawned on me (and scared me a little) that I had elevated my feelings to a place where food could not be the cure and in fact I put myself  in a position to be vulnerable and face things head on.  I was sad, much like losing a old friend who seemed funny and toxic all at the same time, I was overwhelmed with the idea that my "normal" was not the same.

The happy ending is today I am back on a meal plan that is healthy and manageable. I allow myself a little room to move but can't do processed, chemical or destructive to my system anymore. It's taken three years to evolve to this and I am still far from perfect. I am happy however that today my body can decipher between food that harms and food that heals.