Black Swan moment: So perfect it nearly killed me

My body is pleading for me to have mercy on it. And this time, unlike last time, I will listen to it. I know it's totally normal to have aches and pains when upping your workout intensity and amount. But my body hurts so much from the 2 a day grueling torture sessions that I put it through this week that it's hard to sleep even though I am dead tired. So that leads to me rethinking this ambitious endeavor because I realize that it can be a very slippery slope back to crazy and obsessive workouts and lettuce and canned crab meals (with 6 whole peanuts for dessert!). Just like I can never go back to being a coach potato, it is just as dangerous for me to relentlessly drive myself to the point of exhaustion. It's not sustainable, and will only lead to me burning out.

I wanted to work out twice a day this week because I was really curious what I could do if I pushed myself that hard and was completely on point with my food. I think I had to get it out of my system or something. But now at the end of the week, the scene that keeps popping into my head is Natalie Portman at the end of Black Swan with the mirror shard in her body saying, "I was perfect." It cracks me up that that came in my head, but it is kind of a lesson. Because, you know, I don't think it's anyone's goal in life to be such a perfectionist that they completely lose touch with reality and kill themselves while believing they killed someone else. Anyway, I exceeded my calorie burn goal every single day. I ate almost exactly the right amount of calories every single day. I was perfect. And it paid off...I lost 5.4 lbs this week, my biggest loss in a while. I was kind of scared when I stepped on the scale though because when I was in that contest before and worked out like some kind of nutcase burning thousands upon thousands of calories and ate 500 calories a day, I actually ended up losing NOTHING. That devastated me after all that work, but what can you expect? I was treating my body like crap, so it decided to shut down.

So while I was perfect this week technically speaking, I felt far from perfect. By the end of the week, the aches in my body didn't feel like the good kind of ache I usually get after a hard workout. It just felt like my body was screaming for a rest. Plus, I wasn't looking forward to my workouts like I normally do. Usually, a workout is a good time for me to completely clear my head. When I am pushing hard and have sweat pouring off of me, for a little while it's like nothing else matters except for me beating my previous personal record. I just literally can't think of anything else when I am working that hard. That is a good and healthy thing. But all these intense workouts were just too much this week. I started dreading putting by body through that again. And that is not a good or healthy thing.

So I'm scaling it back this week, reminding myself that this journey of mine is not about perfection as much as it is about moderation. Would I lose weight faster if I repeated this past week over and over? Yes, I'm sure I would, but I'm equally as sure that I would gain every bit of it back. This isn't about doing this for a year or 2 years, or however long it takes to meet my ultimate goal. It's about doing this for the rest of my life. So if a behavior of mine is not realistically doable for the rest of my life, it will probably be cut out. Back to normal this week, and normal never sounded so good.