Moderation who?

I am sick with my first British strain of cold. Unsurprisingly, it bears the same symptoms of the American version (sore throat, cough, exhaustion, aches and pains) but is exacerbated by the rain, the rain, the never-ending ungodly rain. I attribute the sudden appearance of this heinousness to several factors which can be summed up with the following overarching condition: Corporal Confusion.

See, in addition to writing in excess for the past six weeks (aka my brain-related excuse for being a blog slacker), I have also put the old bod through quite the rigmarole. Case in point:

Exercise. So I went batsh*t and signed myself up for yet another round of boot camp, only this time I decided I’d throw in the October/November cold and the fact that instead of doing it in the evenings, I’d let some tireless trainer guy beat the hell out of me at 7:30 am. Then I’d haul my theoretically more taut arse to work, shower, change, and start my day off right.

This was fine except that it somehow had the adverse effect of making me ravenous come 10 am and I replaced all calories I’d burned off with the croissant that oh-my-god-I-can’t-resist-and-all-the-skinny-chicks-eat-them-so-I’ll-be-fine-plus-I-already-WORKED-OUT-today and so the whole doing push-ups on cold concrete in the dark was for naught.

Because I think I’d somehow managed to gain weight out of the process, once mid-November came, I opted out of the boot camp and decided to sign up for a gym instead. Excited about the prospect of doing classes like American Cheerleading and B*tch Boxing, I attended my introductory personal training session with the enthusiasm of a person whose muscles ought to be pretty strong from two months of intense work outs. Well. The formerly-obese-guy-turned –fitness-fanatic assigned to me somehow managed to hone on the few muscles that boot camp didn’t touch. That was on Monday, and I’m still having trouble breathing in because of the ab-brutality.

All of these moments of intensity followed by croissant eating have confused my poor bod. If my body is supposed to be a temple, then my mind is like a lapsed Jew. I only really patronize it on special occasions, and then I’m surprised when the congregation is judgmental and unwelcoming.

Food. Several events have been conspiring against my desire to eat healthy. For starters, I had a string of visitors whom I wanted to expose to London’s finest restaurants. First a few friends, then my parents and accompanying crowd of far-flung relatives.

As Social Coordinator of the Crew, I arranged every lunch and dinner over 6 days; as a result, I was both the lucky beneficiary of free food and the unfortunate consumer of countless fat grams. We weren’t unadventurous either. In the time my parents were here, I ate Thai, Vietnamese (yay, Pho!), Seafood, Indian, Dim Sum, Pizza, offal (yes, I had pig hoof pie), and traditional British Sunday lunch. By the time I was finished eating all of Britain and had officially descended into a shame spiral, I decided to go for broke (moderation be damned), and cut everything out of my diet but meat and green vegetables for two weeks. I am happy to report I have now successfully undone any damage caused by the Gorge Fest, however, my body, already baffled by various spurts of intense exercise in cold morning parks, has a frightening new grasp of the excesses of feast or famine…and it’s not taking it too well.

Alcohol. Ahh…hello, old friend. It’s important to note that one of two things happens when Alex is out of town. I either become a bit of a recluse, going home at 6, making a ridiculously healthy dinner, curling up into a ball and watching American TV on DVD. Or….I go out with a vengeance, determined to MAKE FRIENDS and HAVE FUN and BE A NORMAL INDEPENDENT PERSON WITH A LIFE OF HER OWN (admittedly in a way that probably comes across as slightly desperate and moderately annoying to those forced to witness it).

This usually results in, “let’s get another bottle of wine!” or “I could stay for ONE more beer.” You know the drill. Or maybe you don’t, in which case, don’t judge me. Anyway, while I spent last week doing the former, the weekend yielded far more of the latter. Before you think I’m about to go all Leaving Las Vegas on you (the drinking part, not the prostitution part), it too has contributed to my shame spiral.

So now you can see why my body has chosen now to state its case for a little more care and consideration. With every cough, wheeze and painful swallowing episode, I am reminded, “Feed me like I’m supposed to be fed. Stay off the sauce. Function like a normal human being. For god’s sake, girl, get your sh*t together.”

Fortunately, I have Alex, King of Moderation, to do his part for the equilibrium. He returns on Saturday. Hopefully, by then, my body and I will have made peace, and the Corporal Confusion will be put to bed….which is exactly where I intend to spend the next couple of days.