Good Wolf/Bad Wolf

My summer vacation is coming to an abrupt end and I'm not ready for it! Last night, I met with a couple of cohorts and felt the stress rise as I started to grasp the reality of how much more I need to get accomplished. The dinner meeting went much later than expected. On the way home, I stopped by my sister's house to borrow her P90X DVDs and got held up there much later than expected. It was a good thing I was there. She is very pregnant with some back problems and needed help loading up her minivan for a trip to Disneyland! I am so excited for her kiddos to go for their first time. It was fun watching her pack for them and seeing how many princess dresses my niece has. It made me think about how tough it is to be a mom. That's just another reason I should work on my health! If I ever become a mom someday, I'm gonna need to have a lot more energy to be as good of a mom as I can be.

So, the other day, a friend of mine was talking about the good and bad inside of us and mentioned the analogy of a good wolf and a bad wolf that is within us. I was listening to him say how we can feed them one at a time and, if we choose, we can starve out one of them and the other could weaken and eventually die. This made me think about how different I am when I choose to eat refined carbs and unhealthy foods. When I'm in "self-indulgent" mode my healthy desires slowly fall the wayside and even become forgotten. I lose sight of my goals and become depressed. On the other hand, when I get out of that rut and truly feed my body healthy, nutritious things, while making healthy exercise and sleep choices consistently, I wonder why I would ever want to do anything else! 

So, why do I go back to making unhealthy choices? Obviously, the unhealthy, "bad wolf" inside of me is still alive. It makes me wonder about what I can do to completely destroy it. One way, is to feed the healthy "good wolf." It can be challenging, at times, when things sneak up on us that are out of our control. For instance, the last couple of nights, there were unforeseen circumstances that led to me going to bed later than planned. I, therefore, was not able to get my run in yesterday and I wasn't able to get it in this morning either.

So, I still plan to do my P90X Plyometrics workout. But, do I try to fit in a run as well, or just accept that I missed it and move on to hopefully completing my run tomorrow? The last thing I want to do is not get enough running in to accomplish my goals. But, certainly running too much all at once could promote injury, which would have far worse consequences. 

If I have time tonight, I'll try to fit in a couple of sprints, but if I don't get to it, I'm not going to beat myself up for it. 

This week, I've decided to not eat any sugary junk foods. This is a change from my entire summer habits. I think its a good start to starving out the bad wolf. I will have sweets at Megan's birthday party on Saturday, but my goal is to not overindulge too much. I will still punch my calories into MyFitnessPal and own up to my food/exercise choices.

Its interesting how easy it was on Sunday and Monday to not have any sweets and how difficult it was yesterday. I believe that eating some toast in the morning had everything to do with it. I also was in a situation where I didn't have very many nutritional (plant-based) options. I'm noticing how much my food choices will effect my food cravings for the entire rest of the day. Its crazy! Its like giving the bad wolf a little really does strengthen it and makes it stronger!

So, today, I shall make better efforts to only feed the good wolf. :)