Ms. Fitz's Monkey of the Week: Chunky Monkey

Mmmm...ice cream. I love ice cream. And chocolate. Cakes. Warm bread. Food in general, really. I'll admit at the outset that this post is more chunky than monkey, chunk being a personal bane for the past several years.

Our lives are defined by the relationships we foster within them. Just because food doesn't love us back doesn't mean we don't have a relationship with it. It's how we nourish ourselves, excite our tastebuds, indulge in a treat or seek refuge in the memories it evokes.

I've never had a bad relationship with food. Ok, so I have a sweet tooth. A MEGA sweet tooth. As a youth, as long as tooth decay wasn't an issue, I felt free to indulge. As I get older and more sedentary (the proof is in the ass-groove I create daily at my desk) however, I have been forced to reevaluate my relationship and decide whether it's really mutually-beneficial or if someone's getting the caloric shaft.

Several months ago, I was working really diligently to get myself back into shape, participating in 8 weeks of bootcamp. Very proud. Didn't quite match it with the diet, particularly when Christmas came around and the urge to indulge grew too great. Several weeks later, I'm worried about reverting to my pre-fit state, and am trying to grow conscientous of my food intake, not only for my health, but for my pants size. It's a battle I've spent most of my time ignoring, until of course I realized that I was unhappy with how I looked and wanted to improve by losing the belly that had developed over years of over-imbibing and still eating like a university student.

My sort-of resolution this New Year's (not a true one, just more of a timely "now's as good a time as any" decision) is to wean my body off the daily doses of christmas cookies, chocolates and rum-infused eggnog and reintroduce myself to carrots and broccoli. My biggest issue is trying to make that seem appealing and interesting, because I am at pains to feel that way naturally. Keeping up my fitness is also important, as it will compliment the diet and help me not feel bad about all that effort wasted.

By the end of my bootcamp, I could do 30 burpees in a row. I started off with barely 10. I don't want to go back to that place where I'd rather die than do a pushup. But encouraging myself to make it a full lifestyle change, as opposed to a weeklong fast or 6-week workout session, will be the true challenge.

Sigh. Hand me the rice cakes.