It's ok to not be ok.

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball that simply catches you off guard, I’m talking a true crisis here.  Something you have no control over.  How do you cope?  Some people become emotional wrecks and simply cry.  Some people believe they have to be the strong one and bottle up every emotion, and then others suppress their feelings by eating.  Most of my life I have fallen into the latter category.  Whenever I was upset, hurt or angry, I would eat.  If I was happy I would eat, if I was just ‘ok’, I would eat and soon enough you have yourself a habit which is extremely tough to break. 

My weight loss journey has been emotionally tough. Every emotion I ate away, I have had to feel.  It is like peeling back an onion.  The more weight you shed, the more emotional you become.  I have had to deal with emotions I suppressed for years; I had to get to the bottom of why I ate when I did.  In a way it has been liberating, simply letting go and starting new.  Letting the old Liz go in order to find the new Liz. 

This brings me back to the crisis.  I am dealing in the best way that I can, some days I stumble, other days I am ok.  Some days all I need is to smash a training session or just simply run…with no agenda of burning X amount of calories, get my heart rate right up and I know, I can feel that I am alive.  Knowing that my blood is pumping makes me realise all is still ok, it is not the end of my world.  Other days all I want to do is curl up in a ball with a tub of ice cream and cry.

This past week has been pretty harrowing, topped off with the premature death of a friend and colleague.  I have never felt emotion like I have this week, fine one minute, a complete wreck the next.  I slipped back into old habits, allowing myself to eat what ever I liked because “I don’t care anymore!” And “I deserve it!” I skipped 4 out of 7 training sessions this week…not a good tally, and spent an awful lot of time in bed, in a way allowing myself to be depressed.  But yesterday I dragged my sorry ass out to train and as my head cleared I realised exactly why I train.  It’s not for all the goals I set along the way, yes they’re important, but they’re not the essence of my training.  Essentially I train for me…because I always feel better after a workout.

The biggest lesson I have learned from all of this, is that it is ok, to not be ok.  Sometimes you do simply need to collapse in a heap, curl up in bed and eat a bag of chips.  The important thing is to pick yourself back up and remember why life is great.  It is ok to not be ok, but in the end you are responsible for your own actions.  I am responsible for my own actions and realised that three days of bed and food was not helping me one little bit.  Getting smashed last weekend didn’t help me to deal with this emotion, rather numbed it for a few hours and left me feeling sick the entire day after.  I realised that I was slipping back into my old habits and decided that needed to change.  It is tough, but as soon as I started to train, I immediately felt so much better.

I’ve been on this journey for over a year now and have had plenty of ups and downs.  This is just a very big down!  I am still learning that I don’t have to be strong all the time.  I realised this week that good family and friends will always come to your aid.  They will comfort and support you until you are back on your feet.  But the most important lesson I have learned this week?  It is ok to put yourself first, to put your hand up and say, actually ‘I’m not ok’. 

Liz Xox