With my swan-dive into health and fitness, I have also made some adjustments to my diet. One of those adjustments has been to limit certain types of foods. My body has reacted in different ways. One of the ways my body has reacted is in dipping in energy and mental attitudes. I have found when my blood sugar level dips I don’t always have the best mental attitude to interact with other people. I get testy, impatient, and relatively unreasonable.

I am not dipping down below healthy levels, I am crashing from a high back down to normal and it is not a pretty sight. I let myself become irrational. My body is transitioning from unhealthy to healthy and from peppy to pure frustration. Another transition my body makes is from hungry to hungry (hungry and angry.)

The common theme is a mental shift. My mentality shifts from ok, to freaking out. I have started catching myself. I have started stepping back from the situation and reminding myself I am not in a terrible spot. I am in my a good spot, my body is reacting poorly to the quick change from a cheap high.

It is amazing how badly it affects me. I am downright embarrassed it affects me as much as it does. The worst moment is the moment when I realize my negative mental attitude is because of my body not because of the issue. The worst moment is when I do not react correctly and instead I act pridefully. I try to lie to myself and say it there is something else wrong or I am upset over the issue not because my body is freaking out.

The pride moments are killer.

I am most embarrassed of the pride moments.

In what ways does your body affect your mental attitude? What are the symptoms of your mind giving in to your body’s negative state? How can you catch yourself from negatively reacting to unrelated things when your body is not doing well? Who can help you catch yourself when your body is freaking out? How does your body’s state color your lens?

Re-coloring,

–JT

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I have not talked about my health progress and goals of the last year much anywhere, but suffice to say I have been living healthier, exercising, and eating right. Specifically, in reference to eating right, I try to ask myself, “Is this worth it?” If the food is outside of my goal lifestyle, is it worth it? An exception being, special events and celebrations with friends. These events are places where I will generally let myself go a little outside of the normal boundaries and goals.

When I get together with friends, I want to eat pretty much whatever I want. I want to be able to relax and not think about it. Which is great. Truly the right reason to break from the norm is to celebrate and socialize and be good company in good company.

Though, there is a bit of a downfall to this mentality. Special events come more and more frequently. After a while, Saturday becomes a special event on its own merit. Eventually, Sunday joins his brother Saturday and is special as well. A little while later, I am sitting on a bench in the locker room thinking about the last eight weekends wondering why every weekend is special. What happens when everything is special?

Special starts to lose its glamour.

Special starts to become much more of a norm and much less of a treat.

Suddenly, nothing is special.

I find myself needing to raise the bar on what I am calling special in my diet. And in other areas I am finding I need to lower the bar. Truly, I am finding I need to reexamine what I call special and start setting it apart from the other areas of my life. I need to make it truly special. Dinner with my wife might happen four, five, or six nights a week, but do I actually make that moment special? Do I actually set those moments apart and treat them like they are actually more important than the two hundred some odd tweets I have not had time to read from today?

What is your definition of special? What sets the special moments apart from the mundane for you? Where have you gone astray in your ability to set apart these moments?

Specializing,

–JT