One of the most important things I try to do when I have this time off is to break bad habits and set good, healthy and life-affirming new habits into place.
Classic example would be to ride my bike every day.
Another classic example would be getting enough sleep.
These seem like simple, little things but to me are some of the most important building blocks of my life.
The biggest and most difficult problem though is eating.
I suppose I’ve wanted to write about this for the longest possible time and I suppose I’ve eluded to it many times in this blog but I’ve never really talked openly about my relationship with food as it ties in with my addictive personality.
One of the things that prompted me to write this time was a recent article published in the BBC with Richard Osman. Richard Osman is the creator and co-presentor of pointless (a programme I’ve never really watched) but is also a best selling author almost by accident.
On boxing day the BBC news app published an article from him which is listed here about his interview on Desert Island Discs and his discussion about food addiction.
The funny thing about food addiction is that it’s never really identified as being a thing by the vast majority of people when in fact, as far as the health of society is concerned, is probably the biggest thing.
If it’s something you’ve never encountered yourself then perhaps you’ll find it difficult to understand but I would first direct you to the WHO’s definition of addiction.
If you find yourself binging on chocolate or crisps or biscuits or any number of other things, you might read this definition and realise that it’s staggeringly applicable to your relationship with food. As it is to mine.
In my mind I am or can become this athlete who is slim and muscly and quick on a bike (and probably attractive) but the reality is that my relationship with food generally derails that at regular intervals.
I can go through long periods where I just hunt the house for carbohydrates in the evening and can’t settle until I’ve taken them onboard and this is almost inevitably linked to sugar and in particular to chocolate.
I sell this story where I want people to eat Tony’s because it’s slave free chocolate but when I’m in my ‘addictive mood’ I’ll eat anything I can get my hands on and not give it a second thought.
Even over this festive period (I’m talking about from the start of December) the monster is back and I could eat myself to death.
I’m not entirely sure where this came from but I know that I could have had problems with smoking and drugs and alcohol and gambling but managed in all cases to pull back from the brink in these situations and so not to become addicted to some terrible and toxic substances.
Sadly, always unable to do that with food and in particular chocolate and while people laugh at it and make fun of it and make light of it, it’s a major restrictor in stopping me becoming ‘the person I would like to be’.
And so, being off work gives me the chance to focus and settle on the things that cause the problem and try to eradicate them.
At the present time, long periods of really looking after myself and eating properly are usually by accident.
I want to make the switch flick on the 1st of January so that by the time I reach my cycling event in July I’ll be 12 stone and in extraordinary great shape but that nasty side of my personality (the lizard brain) doesn’t allow it to happen.
It’s more than frustrating, it’s depressing but for other people around me it’s just a bit frustrating.
And so, why I write this or even share this?
Because that’s often what these pages are about.
In a world where everybody is great and life is ideal, it isn’t.
Everyone is carrying their own bag of bricks and one of the bricks in my bag is this.
If you've found a magic solution I’d love to hear it from you but I know you haven’t.
If there was a magic solution I would have found it years ago.
Still looking though, maybe through these few weeks there will be an answer of sorts which will at least get me to July.
Blog Post Number - 2967
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