The Mind Was All In - The Body Wanted Out - The Price Of Not Listening To Your Body

Is there such a thing as too much discipline?

To that I say absolutely.

It's been 24 days since my last run. Haven't tried once since as I don't want to feel the pain and disappointment of trying to run and have my body shut down on me less than 10 minutes in. Patiently waiting for spring to come around so I can test the water again. In a very short period of time, I went from a hundred to zero. From the maximum to the minimum. From unstoppable to breakable. The signs where there all along - I just didn't want to see them.

Being forced to stop doing what I love most in the world came with some positives, notably the fact that my body functions found back some form of normality. Overkilling your body while undernourishing it can't possibly come free of consequences. Intense poison ivy rash, severe constipation, but the running addict that I was could not dare for a split second of entertaining the thought of putting a break on my out of control momentum.

The mind was all in, the body wanted out. And who gets the last word? My rigid self imposed discipline. Don't tell an addict to quit. I was rolling on bliss and I could not be stopped. I knew damn well that if it did end up happening, I'd be back in my bed sleeping 15 hours a day flirting with darkness.

Go hard or go home? The issue is that when I go hard I go too hard. I go extra hard. I go I'm-going-to-break-records hard. Self compassion went down the tubes. I'll be on the verge of dying and I'll keep going. There isn't such a thing as enough. If my body can handle it, why not go extra hard at it?

October came around and I hit a big low. How low can you go Luda? To dedicate 4 to 5 hours of your day to training and have it taken away from you in an instant hurts like hell. Withdrawal was calling my name and I was terrified of being under its commands for god knows how long.

Incapable of being at peace with the idea of moderation, being forced to stop running made me fall a little deeper in obsession with my already very existing love of eating.
But it was different now as I didn't have a deficit of thousand of calories to compensate since I was no longer running. From restricting to binging, my days no longer oriented toward running became oriented toward the next food I would put in my mouth.

Exercise being my everything, I traded running for some four minutes planks combined with the suicide inducing pain of hitt workouts. One rest day of the week was already deadening when I was running, now the challenge got extra harder as you can't do hitt everyday. Of course the masochist in me tried, and I hate myself for not being able to just take a chill pill and enjoy the rest days. But when exercise is the only highlight (beside food) of your quarantine life, it's kind of hard to put it aside.

Overdoing it in all of life departments has failed me time and again, and sometimes I wonder what will it take for me to change my ways. The price of not listening to your body for long enough is a very high one, and wisdom should be found in not reaching the end of the rope before doing something about it.