Addiction or Lifestyle?

When I first started training I was eager to get in the gym and start my workouts, mostly because I had been waiting weeks to start my transformation journey and now that I was no longer pregnant I could begin. There was no stopping me.

Workouts were tough but I enjoyed them, I looked forward to the aching pain the next day and to the excruciating burning sensation in my legs that came from simple tasks like walking up or down stairs, although my body hurt I knew that this feeling meant I was doing something right.

A couple of months into training and I remember my regime slipped a little, I began looking for reasons not to train and tried to justify why I should be allowed to eat sweets or have that big fat scrumptious looking cupcake. I would use any excuse to hide my lack of commitment.

I can remember having a conversation with Craig when I was about ready to give up on it all and saying something along the lines of; ‘It’s all well and good having the time to train whilst I’m on maternity leave, but how can I possibly manage it when I go back to full-time work in a few months?’ It was at this point Craig gave me an ultimatum, he lay it out right there and then… ‘Either you want to commit and reach the goal that you have been dreaming of for years, or you just give up now and don’t bother’.

Talk about a guilt trip!

He was right though, I had to make a decision that would actually change not only my life but my kids lives too. From that point on I forced myself to get all my training sessions in each week and also to keep on top of my cardio.

Eventually I realised that I had reached a point where working out became second nature, I no longer had days where I dreaded the thought of picking up a dumbbell. In actual fact things reversed themselves and soon I felt guilty if I didn’t get all my workouts in each week.

Hence where the title of this post comes in, working out for me now is part of my lifestyle, as much as brushing my teeth or taking a shower is. Something I do everyday without thinking about it.

I will be honest here and say that if there is a possibility that my training schedule were to get messed up then I would be very aware of it and feel like I were letting myself down. Call it addiction if you will but I feel that since I have started training this regularly that my body has been set into a routine that it enjoys, I feel fitter, healthier and happier, so why would I want to miss a session?

As far as my diet is concerned, it is fairly strict, everything we eat is measured to reflect the type of body I hope to achieve, but that doesn’t mean to say that I can’t enjoy all the things that I used to. We will have ‘re-feed’ days where we eat malteasers, nachos, popcorn and other treats – if anything I savour these days as this type of food tastes so much better when I haven’t been eating it all week long.

When asked about how often I work out I am generally faced with the same response… ‘don’t you think that a little addictive?’ My reply to this is simple… ‘I can almost always guarantee that I spend less time at the gym each morning than you probably do sitting watching TV each day’. An episode of a TV soap or game show is roughly an hour long, right? In that hour I have already done my workout, showered, dressed and am about to sit down at my desk for the day. As far as anyone’s thoughts on this interfering with time spent with my family, at 6:30 am the rest of the house is still asleep and they don’t wake up until long after I have started work so I wouldn’t see them in the morning anyway. Training to this regime just makes sense to me.

These days I workout because I love to. I love the feeling I get from lifting weights and the glow I have after a hard session. Not to mention how I feel when I see my body changing from week to week in the mirror.

I would also like to think that I am becoming a good role model for my kids, promoting a fit and healthy lifestyle that they too will want to follow.