Healthy Perspective

There was a time in my life when I suffered from a variety of eating disorders.  Initially it was about performing better in sports, after all, if you carry a five pound dumbbell while you run, you'll go slower, so why not lose five pounds and run faster?  Subsequently it was about body image, self worth, fear, anger, control, etc. the list goes on.

When I first started CrossFit, I had lost about 20 pounds in the prior year having retired from hammer throwing, and making good on my promise to myself that the second I quit throwing I'd return to my pre-hammer weight (about 170).  I told Chris that I wanted to work out, but had no interest whatsoever in talking about diet or nutrition because I'd found something that worked for me (basically, trying to eat healthy-ish and suppress all thoughts of size, weight, or anything related), and I didn't want to drum up old ways of thinking.  In other words, "If you talk to me about diet I'm really afraid that my current state of fragile indifference could revert back to full blown eating disorders.  Please don't."

Now, a little more than two years later, I have been as light as 158 and as heavy as 178.  I have twice cut weight successfully from about 174 to 165 for weightlifting competitions and have once failed royally at the same without restarting my eating disorders.  I've learned a tremendous amount about the difference between form and function (focus on the latter tends to help improve the former), and I've fully embraced the concept of the Paleo diet (eat less of what man makes, more of what God makes), although sometimes I fail to put this belief into practice (yes, that was me you saw eating chocolate yesterday for lunch).  Interestingly, while my all-time Squat, Deadlift, Clean, Snatch, Bench, etc. PRs have gone up, my weight has stayed essentially the same as when I started CrossFit (apparently something other than weight can move weight), and my clothing size has dropped from a high of 14, to 10 when I started CrossFit, to 6 now.  Incredible.

But, let's be honest here, it's not all puppies and rainbows.  There are days when I want nothing more than to eat a full pizza, ice cream by the pint, chocolate by the bar, chips by the bag, and a good old fashioned salami sandwich.  In all honesty though, any time I eat that stuff now, I really notice a difference in the way I perform, think, and feel.  It's increasingly not worth it to me to eat highly processed, salty, sugary crap.  I want to feel, perform, and look great, which is much easier when I eat reasonable quantities of foods that are intended for consumption by humans.

Would I like to look more chiseled (think Andrea Ager, Lindsey Smith, Talayna Fortunato)?  Unequivocally yes.  Have I figured out how to do that in the context of my life?  Absolutely not.  I work at high intensity 50+ hours every week.  I work out at high intensity 5-6 days per week.  My life is really intense.  A lot of times I don't have the energy to even think about what to make for dinner, much less make it, and the unfortunate thing about Paleo eating is that eating raw chicken is really not a good idea.  Do I still need to eat whatever I feel like on occasion just to stay sane?  Yes.

Here's the thing.  I believe that people have to live in their own context.  I have a family history of weight issues.  I've struggled to find my own happy medium where my self acceptance, genetics and lifestyle match up.  But in the end, I've realized that though I was once proud of a semi-flabby 170 pound body, I can now accept a leanish, muscular 175 without falling into a death spiral.  The several times a week college runs to Jack in the Box to eat the highest calorie/dollar order on the menu to sustain my weight (ha!) have become regular home-cooked meals and somewhate frequent treats at natural/local/organic restaurants funded by the high stress job I show up for every day.

It's all a balance.  I hope to eat better, look better, and perform better next year, but in the meantime, I'm thankful that I eat better, look better, and perform better than I did last year.  Only in the context of gradual improvement can I maintain a healthy perspective (and that's how I got away from the eating disorders too - day by day focusing on the one thing I could do better on that day).