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The Poison Mind

By Coach Shawn

RELIVING

About 9 weeks ago, in the middle of a Monday night, it hit me out of nowhere…

Food poisoning. 

Those two words paired together can elicit a sour feeling in anyone.

Especially If you’ve been on the receiving end of food poisoning.

Then you know and understand the pain that comes along with it. 

  • Trips to the bathroom.  
  • Stomach pain. 
  • Unable to eat. 
  • No appetite or desire to eat. 
  • Tired. 
  • Fever. 
  • Did I say trips to the bathroom? 

And one of the worst things I feel like of any kind of sickness can include is the muscle/body aches. 

Feeling so weak, depleted and your body and muscles just hurt everywhere. 

It feels even worse if you worked out like you normally would/have the day(s) previous because you broke down those muscle fibers in training yet you are excreting your nutrients and fluids at such a rate and you can’t ingest anything so your body hasn’t had any opportunity to recover, repair or rebuild. 

Amplifying the sensation.

Not to mention just the general body and muscle aches that come along with this type of sickness.

Over the course of those 3 days I was only able to consume maybe about 1,000 calories and went to the bathroom more times than I can remember. 

I lost over 6lbs in 3 days. 

Not the weight you want to lose. I lost it in my face, my muscles atrophied a little from the lack of protein and nutrients. 

Internally I was very disappointed. 

REGROUPING 

I knew putting the healthy weight back on it would take some time. 

I would need patience. 

I needed precision. 

I brought an idea to the team of doing a 30 day Nutrition Challenge together.

The challenge first consisted of picking a goal:

A- Lose weight (fat)

B-Gain weight 

C-Maintain weight 

From there, we’d determine our TDEE Calories or Total Daily Energy Expenditure Calories.  

AKA how many calories at our specific activity level maintains our weight.

Once we all had our TDEE we either would be in a very small deficit if we wanted a fat loss, surplus if we were looking to gain or those exact TDEE if we were looking to maintain. 

Last piece of this challenge was a 5 day rotation of 3 days of higher carbohydrate days and 2 days of lower carbohydrate days. 

This is a concept known as ‘carb cycling.’ 

We would do an in-body scan before the challenge and 30 days later.

Each day we would track all of our macros (Pro, Carb, Fat) in MyFitnessPAL and attempt to get as close to our specific macros as possible. 

Everyone was in. 

THE RESULTS 

Coming off losing weight, hard-earned muscle I was eager to get back to a frame, structure and size I was accustomed to. 

For 30 days I was 100% on point. 

I hit my protein count everyday. 

Rotated and hit my carbs and fats daily.

I had a fire inside of me – lit from the dissatisfaction of losing those hard earned 6lbs.

I gained so many valuable things from this (advanced) challenge.

Including eating new things, expanding my palate, a broader and better understanding of foods and their specific macros.  

I was extremely relentless with my discipline to hit my macros. 

I could slowly feel my body beginning to improve. 

At the 30 day mark it was time to re scan in and measure the bodies progress. 

The results were in:

Body fat mass – .5lb 

Skeletal Muscle +1bs 

Body fat – .03%

Total weight +2.5lb 

THE RE-FRAME  

The results were not what I was exactly hoping for. 


I wanted more. 

I wanted to be back to where I was. 

I worked so hard across 30 days. 

Initially I felt the frustration of the weight I was  stripped of in 3 days of food poisoning. 

But then, I caught my own awareness.

I caught myself in these negative thinking patterns. 

Within my head, I thought: 

“This isn’t healthy thinking Shawn.  You cannot change the past and that you got sick and lost weight. You made progress here. Real progress. And to let your unrealistic expectations of what they “SHOULD HAVE BEEN” rob you of your hard work, happiness and pride in your effort/results is unacceptable. You are still on your journey, not yet done.” 

RELATING

How many of you can relate in some form or fashion?

Maybe you’re recovering from a tweak, injury or setback.

Healing isn’t going as fast as you’d like. 

Holding you back from things or a constant reminder of your discomfort? 

How easy is it to point the finger of blame, dissatisfaction or to live in frustration and tell yourself stories that only make you feel more upset?

Or perhaps you too aren’t where you want to be with your body along your journey. 

And you’ve been working hard for awhile. 

Yet the results are coming at a snail’s pace. 

It’s so easy to WANT to lose hope. 

To lose sight. 

To WANT to give up.  

REALITY 

For that SHORT moment in time I was fixated on the results I HADN’T yet achieved. 

My focus was off. 

I hadn’t been focusing on all the progress I made across the 30 days. 

Not just within my body but a multitude of areas, my performance, my sleep, my habits, my knowledge, my productivity, my food quality increase to name a few. 

The reality is results take time. 

We live in a day and age where we want everything NOW. 

From times where you had to mail letters to communicate to now you can text in an instant. 

From having to drive to the mall or store to find what you need, now you can order it online in seconds and even have it tomorrow. 

We have gotten spoiled and it’s jaded our perception.

Real work, real change takes time. 

There will be ups, downs, improvements, setbacks.  It’s ALL a part of the journey. 

It is through patience, consistency and flexibility we achieve what we are after. 

Patience in the process.

Consistency with our efforts, actions and behaviors. 

And

Flexibility with the windy road that success has.

Otherwise, our poison mind destroys like an earthquake, wreaking havoc and destruction to all who walk its path, including ourselves.

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