Week analysis

This whole week was complete crap. It started because I missed one run due to the rain and decided to do HIIT instead. That led to muscle pain (I really should have foreseen this) and as a result I skipped the next two days of running. Even if I substituted it for longer treadmill walks, the effects were not as good. I had low energy for half of the week.

Furthermore, food wise there were several obstacles. Firstly, on Tuesday students asked me to have dinner with them. I originally said I would bring my own food, but then due to time constraints for meal prep I was tempted to eat with them. Very bad choice. Then, on Wednesday there was a town hall meeting. I originally decided against eating dinner, but was tempted by the buffet. You'd think, as long as one controls on quantity, it shouldn't hurt. The food also tasted so good — after all, it’s oily, fatty, packed with spices. But soon I learnt my lesson — after two months of clean eating, apparently my stomach can no longer handle this type of food. I went to bed with a queasy feeling in the gut, and woke up at 3am with cold sweat due to gastric pain. Sleep was subsequently ruined, leading to an even worse day where I slip back to old binging habits, and spent the entire evening browsing videos.

Fortunately, I'm back on the running track starting this morning onward. Moral of the week?

1. DON’T SKIP RUNNING — don’t even substitute it with other forms of exercise for now, not even if it rains.

2. WHEN YOU PLAN TO NOT EAT OUT, DON’T GIVE IN TO THE TEMPTATION — it simply doesn’t pay to slack off. And by the way, no more eating out for you for the whole of September.

3. A FOOLPROOF EMERGENCY ESCAPE & DE-STRESS PLAN IS IN HIGH DEMAND — the question is, what is convenient, easily motivating, doable anywhere and anytime, and healthy & constructive? I mean, I do have proper escape plans like blogging and writing in my notebooks, except that they kick in only when I'm not too weak. When my will is sufficiently weakened by exhaustion or stress or discouragement, then they don't work properly anymore. After thinking about this for a while, I decided that whenever I catch myself tempted to binge, the escape plan would be to just get out of the house for a full walk round the campus, with headphones jamming on Mayday.