Feed Your head

The physical recovery is going well. Today I went for a 24 kilometer bike ride and came home sweaty but barely breathing heavy. My muscles are also re-adapting to weight training faster than I could have hoped.

The mental recovery… well, that’s another story.

I only underwent 100 days of starvation, but as I said one of the worst aspects of it wasn’t the lack of energy or the atrophying muscles, it was becoming a shut-in. But a funny thing has happened.

Now I have to remind myself to eat, because I’m as likely as not to ignore the hunger signals my body sends out. After more than three months of ignoring them I’m having to re-train myself to respond to them. But in a similar way I need to re-train myself to be around people.

Shortly after I finished the starvation stunt I ran off to the West Coast for a few days to relax in the rainforest and unwind. My mom and her husband were in the country for the summer, and in that area, so I went and visited them. Two of my step-brothers popped in for a visit and, while I love seeing them and don’t get to do so nearly enough, suddenly it felt very crowded.

Fast-forward to now, a month since I’ve had license to eat normally. one of the reasons I’m enjoying biking, I think, is it’s an hour or two every day when I can just be alone. No phones ringing, no incoming emails sending off tones demanding my attention… just me, the bike, and wherever the path leads.

I also have to mentally bitch-slap myself. I weigh myself every morning to monitor the weight gain, and now that I’m nearing the 200 lb. mark again my first reaction is to think “Aagh! I must diet again!”. This, of course, is madness. At 177lbs I was thinner but unhealthy. Much of my weight gain has been coming back to normal levels of hydration and replacing lost muscle mass, and is nothing to be ashamed of.

See, my logical mind knows that. But my emotional side wants to beat Spock-me up and tie him in a closet long enough to shave 10-15 lbs off my frame again.

So the road to recovery is still looking pretty long and lonely.

Still, I’m working on a few exciting projects as spin-offs of this one that help get me going in the morning. One is a cross-Canada ride in the works for next summer. I’ll be looking for volunteers to ride alongside me as I make my way from St. John, Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia. If you’re interested in riding with me as I come through your city, or even joining me for a while as I ride down the highway, keep watching this blog for info. It promises to be fun!