I'm sitting in the back of a cramped Spirit Airlines flight from LAX to Houston, where my parents and sister will meet me at the airport in a few hours. Maybe it's because I'm used to flying with Southwest (where I am a very loyal customer and fan of their terrific customer service, free checked bags, in-flight snacks, and airline attendant optimism), but my shoulders and neck are on fire, screaming with tension and yearning for a good stretch or a workout. With another several hours in front of me, I find myself trying to relax, adjusting the air flow from the dime-sized vent above my head, and thinking.
Why am I so stressed out?
Today, admittedly, has been a less-than-smooth day thus far. I woke up early to pack, jumped in my car to head to a training session, got pulled over (and ticketed) for changing the song on my iPod (while stopped at a red light, I have to add), sat in traffic on the 405, got to the gym for training and had to wait (due to a miscommunication that was no one's fault), crammed in a sweaty backflipping practice session with Cory, took what my friend Cari calls a "Spanish Shower" in the restroom, drove my car to the airport lot, took the shuttle over to the terminal (and felt guilty about not having the foresight to get cash for a tip), checked in for my flight and realized that each piece of baggage - carry-on or checked - would be an additional $45-50, per item, crammed three bags into one and barely slid by the weight limit, got pulled aside and pat down at security, sat down to wait for my flight next to a man who started playing loud music from his phone, boarded the plane (and said a passing "hi" to the two guys filming the documentary, both seated in row two), and made my way back to seat 23E.
Going through all of that isn't a chance for me to wine, or to ask for soothing "there, theres". After all, I am privileged enough to be flying home to work on a documentary about my life, and the people and places I love, and that's pretty surreal. But as someone who is really tough on herself, just doing this mental re-cap of my day thus far lets me realize that, hey, I'm not doing so bad. I haven't had a breakdown yet (although I did see an epic meltdown from an older Asian woman at the gate that had airport security questioning her flying capabilities).
Over the past few weeks, I have found myself increasingly stressed out. I have been putting tremendous pressure on myself to nail this back tuck, which has actually slowed my progress a bit. Yesterday, Gabe had to remind me, "hey, this isn't about you proving you can do it, or getting it perfect. I've seen you do it, and you know you have it. You have to just let this be an experience of trying out something new, of having this fun opportunity to learn a new trick, which you may or may not use in the future." He was totally right. Old habits die hard, and if there's one thing I am continually challenged with and working on, it's the habit of beating myself up for not being perfect, or becoming so intellectually critical of a situation or task that my central processing unit overheats and dies. (Okay, so that last part was a turbo-nerd throwback to my junior year computer programming class, but it was an analogy that came to me and worked.)
Another interesting thing I noticed in the last few weeks? I know this will be a real shocker to the people who know me, but: the impact of my diet on my success. Yes, I know, I preach about this all of the time. But it is also a part of myself that I am highly tuned into, so I notice how what I eat changes my body and mind, in both subtle and dramatic ways.
A few weeks back, when I first got home, I started following a "no sugar" (including fruit) protocol. I had been eating pretty well during the first part of shooting in Vegas, but had enjoyed wine, or gluten-free cookies, or kombucha, or honey in my tea on weekends. I had been feeling great with my super "nut yeast salads", but would always feel just a twinge slower after I had sugar. So I figured I would take out sugar in LA while training. After about five days of no sugar, I found myself feeling much more confident. Not just confident about the way my skin looked or my stomach felt, but more mentally confident, more alert. Last Saturday was the best my backflips had been, I wasn't feeling compelled to be perfect, and I felt like I could take on the world. Then the past few days, I started having little bits of sugar here and there. Some (amazing) chickpea chocolate chip cookies, some plum wine, honey and almond butter on apples - nothing insane, and healthy variations of snacks, compared to most people - but this spiral started again. I began to feel tense, I didn't sleep as well, I started feeling anxiety about silly, unimportant tasks; at the gym, I felt myself retreating into old habits that I had overcome in the past few training sessions. As much as we have some really amazing chemistry and it feels like fireworks when we're together, sugar is that relationship partner who is just sabotaging my world, like the utter narcissist he is.
Now I know there is at least one person reading this post who thinks this is utter nonsense. If you had told me this ten years ago, when I was still eating along the guidelines of the Standard American Diet, I would have laughed out loud. So I debated writing about this, even though it is really interesting to me. Then, as I was flipping through one of the magazines I brought on the plane (as travel is usually when I finally get a chance to catch up on my stacks of literary materials), I read this article that convinced me I might just be onto something.
"Max Goldberg [..] struggled with depression for years. After 11 years of taking the antidepressant Prozac, he tapered off use of the pills in 2001 [and] he resisted his parents' pleas to resume medication while spiraling into a very deep, unsteady and lingering depression. Over the next few months, he lost his job, his savings and his girlfriend, and ended up living back at home with his parents. He had already embarked on a path to better health, eschewing cigarettes and alcohol, and eating organic and more nutritious foods. [..] Even so, it took more than four years for him to connect the dots between the foods he ate and the terrible bouts of depression he experienced. 'I realized that I would eat these cookies, and they would send me into a massive depression,' Max says. 'For me, sugar was just devastating.' Once he realized the effect it was having on his moods, he quit eating refined sugar and hasn't touched it for 10 years. He began learning how food affects mood and brain function - something he now works to educate others about - and says it is crucial to those who really want to experience a happy life."
(Article entitled "Dine Happy!: If you are what you eat, you might as well eat happy foods!", by Paula Felps.)
"Food affects mood and brain function." That is huge! It's not even that certain foods can give you acne, or cellulite, or bags under your eyes - but foods can change the way your brain works. That is both tremendously daunting, as well as incredibly inspiring, because each of us has the ultimate control in changing our own mental and emotional wellbeing, through the foods we choose to eat. It is a choice, and it is equally hard for everyone. Maybe sugar doesn't have this effect on everyone. But I would bet each of us has foods which, if we payed close enough attention, we would recognize as health saboteurs. I have a lovely friend from college who had been diagnosed with severe depression as a teenager. She was staunchly against the idea of popping pills (as am I), and asked her doctor, "are there any natural alternatives to fight depression?" He gave her a good long look and said, "it doesn't work for everyone, but try cutting out meat." She cut out meat, has been depression-free (and I might add, radiant!) ever since, and stays away from meat to this day. For her, it was meat. For me, it's sugar. I just have to wonder what our homes, our offices, our trips to the grocery store or our vacations would look like, if we all took a step back to say, "what does the food I consume do to me on a mental and emotional level?"
I have gone hard-core off of all refined sugar before, twice. Both times, after a month without sugar, I felt calmer, more sure of myself, and just downright happier. Have I tried this before and ended up going back to my old love affair with sugar? Yes. Is it hard as hell for me to ignore that 10pm craving for all things chocolate? You bet your bottom dollar. But, like I tell my fitness clients, "the exercises you hate doing are the ones you need the most." It's not just a rule that applies to the physical world; the exercises of the spiritual world, of the willpower world, are the foundations of character. It's like this saying that's on one of the walls at the Tempest gym: "that which resists persists." If I don't face something difficult, then it defeats me, and I am not going to let my mood and my general happiness be dictated by substance. Sugar is an addictive drug, which fueled the beginning of the slave trade hundreds of years ago, and which the USDA profits greatly from today. So if I don't believe in people relying on substances to get them through life, and if I want to enjoy the life I know I deserve, it's time to kiss this problem boyfriend to the curb for good.
I know I will enjoy a cool, bubblegum-flavored sno-cone this Sunday, at the place my friends and I used to go after high school for a treat, for the documentary. I will enjoy the heck out of that experience, and then I will say a bittersweet sayonara to refined sugar, at least until filming is wrapped. Then, I will reevaluate, and hopefully feel it is a good choice for me. Do I want to feel deprived when friends have a night out? Of course not. But if I can have a piece of fruit while they have their cake, then I know I won't feel deprived all the other hours of my day. We give ourselves the quality of life we feel we deserve, through awareness, action, grit, and patience. I am going to go follow Thoreau's advice, and live the life I have imagined.
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