Yesterday I was talking to a friend about my 30 day challenge and I mentioned that a part of it is not drinking coffee. Then I admitted drinking lots of green tea. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “So you basically still get 5 cups of coffee a day!”

My initial reaction was to produce a chart that said an espresso has 100 mg of caffeine, while a cup of green tea has 15, but then I thought, really, this is like the time when I was vegetarian. I haven’t eaten any meat for three years or thereabouts, but at any party there would always be one of those people who would point at my leather boots and exclaim “Aha! You are not really saving animals! Is this leather I see!” I could then explain how leather is really a by-product from cows getting killed for their meat, but really… what’s the point?

There is ALWAYS more that I could be doing. I could be running a mile before breakfast. But then, I could run two miles before breakfast. I go to the gym four or five times a week, but I could go six. And I could also spend more time on my Dutch. And on drawing. And writing. And making music. And I could give up green tea, of course. But is there really a point where I should be heading to avoid hearing my friend exclaim triumphantly “Aha! You own a leather wallet! So you do hate animals after all!”?

That old slogan that goes “it is not the destination that matters but the journey”? It’s kinda true. Because being fit isn’t about going towards some goal (what would that be, winning the olympics?) and then wiping sweat off your brow and going “aaah, now I can relax with pizza and beer”. (Unless of course you are Kevin Federline.) I am not trying to make my friends envy me, or to stop using any caffeine whatsoever, or to single-handedly save the planet. All I am trying to do is succeed in my small tiny little easypeasy 30 day challenge. And even if I fail on one of those days, I still succeeded 29 times.

Lalalala, what a beautiful morning. By golly, I have an amazing idea! Let’s measure my waist and other bits, as I used to do every week for a long time and neglected recently, to see how I am doing after four weeks of missed yoga, missed workouts and hardly any cycling, coupled with eating pancakes in bed (due to flu — good excuse) and drinking beer (after the accident — need to calm nerves — good excuse).

EEEEKKKKK!!!!
GROSS!!!!

Back to clean eating and working out 4-5 times a week it is.

EDIT: Oh hell. If Hannah can do a 30-day yoga challenge, I can do a 30-day clean eating challenge. Here are the rules:

• No alcohol
• No coffee
• No black tea unless green/white/camomile is unavailable
• No carbs after 6pm unless dining with boyfriend
• No sugar, chocolate, sweets of any kind (this is the easy bit)
• No fried foods (this is the difficult bit)

It will be easy peasy! (Not.) But that’s why it’s called a challenge. If it was meant to be easily completed, it would be called pizza.

I started yesterday, so the end date is Dec 2.

I used to hate my body.

I used to do insane diets where I would only eat cabbage soup for a week. Well, for five days. After five days of that I would devour a pizza with double cheese and mayonnaise sauce and drink high-sugar apple juice from a carton. After five days of cabbage soup the last thing I wanted was another two days of cabbage soup.

(This, by the way, is how yo-yo effect happens.)

I used to go to the gym and jump on the cardio machine with a goal such as “burn 530 calories in 30 minutes”. If I only did 528, it didn’t count as a workout, I thought I didn’t do enough. That I was a fat lazy git who failed. Failed, failed, failed. And I would go home and drink wine, because, you know, that’s something failed gits do. And I would eat a pizza, because, well, I worked out so I deserve a treat, right. And I would end up in a vicious circle: eat crap, feel guilty, work out, feel a failure, eat crap, feel guilty, etc.

I can’t recall a specific turning point where the vicious circle turned into a lovely circle (this phrase is shamelessly stolen from Hannah with whom I had an amazing chat today). It had to do with therapy and Magical Training Courses, generally, and the most important bit was getting rid of guilt as a part of my life altogether. That brought the realisation that I am not a failure for burning 528 calories instead of 530; that I am a major winner of Grand Prix of Amazingness for burning 528 calories instead of 0. That I am not a failure for lifting 45 kg and not making it to 50; that I am a major success for being at the gym and lifting anything at all while there are people who don’t lift anything else but TV remote. And that food isn’t a God-sent torture device meant to be used for self-punishment; it is something I can use to fuel my amazing, strong, powerful body which at the age of thirty two is in better shape than it has ever been before.

Nowadays my breakfast on a weekday is a protein shake with oatmeal. Not because I am punishing myself; on the contrary, I am rewarding myself. It tastes like Nesquik cocoa with biscuit crumbs in it. It makes me feel like a kid indulging on sweets when mom isn’t looking. And it happens to be low-fat, high-protein and full of slow-burning carbs, which is the best thing you could possibly have in the morning. If I am feeling very adventurous, I add some fruit. Because, dammit, I’m worth it.

Sometimes in the evening I drink. (A workmate was recently shocked to discover I drink beer. Oh, had she known. LOL.) But I don’t drink because I hate myself and I want to punish myself; I drink because it’s an enjoyable thing to do, and then I stop in time to eat something and have tea before going to sleep. As a result, I haven’t had a single hangover in almost two years — my last one was in December 2007 when I visited Poland, drank 748724 beers with an old friend, then decided cherry vodka would round the evening up nicely. There’s a lesson in there my friends, and that lesson is: cherry vodka is so much nicer when it goes in than when it goes out.

I don’t have the super-toned body that Madonna has, and I probably never will. That would require much more motivation and determination than I have. I still love pizza and a pint of guinness. But I have a body that makes me proud and happy, and it makes my boyfriend happy too, and to tell you the truth, that’s quite enough.