So I'm back from my two week trip into the bushes of Australia. As per the previous post on Introversion, it was not all sunshine and roses. Far from it.
The challenges I thought I would have the trouble with was eating unhealthy food and not being able to exercise. In reality the most trouble I had revolved around being bored and dealing with an extremely arrogant, chauvinistic pig who was basically a "workplace bully".
The food challenge went really, really well though. I ended up eating m & ms a couple of times, usually a forbidden type of food. Takeaway pizza one night. Went out for dinner twice - once I ordered steak with fries and ate them all, another time I had deep fried zucchini "balls" (with salad). I also went out drinking with the boys - after which I had bacon and eggs. I also ate the most forbidden food of them all in my mind - a donut. The good part about it though, is that while I felt guilty each time I ate these unhealthy foods, I did not beat myself up about it (too much) or dwell on it to a large degree.
I was not able to work off anything I ate. We were not allowed to wear anything but our uniform and as I only had two pairs and we had no access to showers.... yeah. It would have also been too difficult as we couldn't leave the small square area of bush we were based in, so unless I ran 100 m back and forth!! I decided to just use the two weeks as a break / rest. Although I suspect it will be VERY difficult to get back into it all. It always is after a break! My plan tomorrow is to go for an easy run and just see how I feel, run as many k's as my legs feel good for.
The weirdest part of all? After eating rubbish food and doing NO exercise for two weeks... I lost 1.6 kilos (3.6 pounds). Honestly, every time I do something like this, I ALWAYS lose weight. It's really confusing and frustrating. While I know when I'm away I don't count calories and tend to eat a little more intuitively, it still doesn't seem to make sense that I can eat food with no nutritional value and generally treat my body in a crappier way yet it responds with weight loss. Then I go back home and return to my normal ways and it comes back on.
I usually either respond by attempting to eat more intuitively when I get home (usually backfires and ends up with weight gain) or increase my calories to match what I thought I was eating when away (usually ends up with weight gain too). Hopefully it's not muscle loss or something, and that's the reason why I always lose when I go away somewhere and then it returns when I resume exercising. Hmm... curious.
I will be back tomorrow with a WIAW post. I'm probably going to be eating some sort of "detox" kind of foods. I'm not into the whole detox thing, but basically I mean getting back to eating healthier wholesome foods to rid my body of all the processed rubbish I've been eating. Had a lunch for my grandma's birthday today and there was lots of salad and fruit salad, so that was a great start. I missed fresh food!!!
