Restart

RESTART

Relapse is a word often used in terms of addictions, but it also strongly applies to our pursuit of health and wellness. Relapse is an inevitable stage of behaviour change/betterment. One cannot expect to eliminate a bad habit or introduce a good one without any obstacles. For me, one of the most essential things to keep in mind while improving my health was that I would indefinitely fail, but that did not define me. With this knowledge, I was able to bounce back so much easier when I did mess up. Relapse is unavoidable, but it provides growth, strength, and learning. Relapse is not failure and it does not erase success. If you’ve begun your health journey, know that there will be obstacles, but where there is no struggle, there is no strength. Maybe you started your journey, but slipped up somewhere, and now you cannot find the motivation to get back on top of it. Just know that it’s a normal and natural stage, and it does not mean that you are incapable. Use your struggle as motivation. Learn from it, embrace it, and nurture yourself through it. You are strong, capable, and worthy of health and happiness.


 Personally, I started my journey to health during the summer, and it was my main focus. I had graduated high school early, and therefore had an 8 month break before heading to university. Exercise and clean eating became my priority throughout that time. I got my diet on track, and I worked out daily. I was in the best shape of my life... and then university happened. I hurled myself into the academic year, avidly determined to succeed in my studies. It was a huge transition, but I actually coped quite well in terms of stress, but what I overlooked was the fact that the balance in my life had been completely shifted. I went from working out daily in the summer to playing low caliber soccer twice a week, which was not sufficient exercise for me. I totally emerged myself in academics, and was somewhat unaware that I had stopped focusing on my health. 
At first, I was fine. I didn't really realize that I was losing muscle and gaining fat. However, my unhealthy lifestyle caught up with me, and as my muscle mass decrease, so did my confidence, and as my body fat percentage increase, so did my level of discontent. I started feeling down a lot of the time, and my body image was suffering. It took me a little over three months to finally realize that, when I started school, I had completely cut out a part of my life that had previously made me feel so happy and accomplished. I was able to remember how good I had felt about myself and my life when I was regularly working out and eating healthy. That realization was what kickstarted me back into my journey. When I recognized that I had failed, I felt so defeated. I thought I had lost all the progress that I had worked so hard for during the last 8 months, but when I was able to give up the defeatist attitude, and start looking at it more optimistically, I got back on track. I started to realize that through my three month slump, I learned why I had started working out in the first place. It was because it made me so much happier. I started to motivate myself saying, "you know what it took to get to the healthy state that you were in at the end of summer, and so the second time around will be easier. You can do it". I set goals, adopted a positive mindset, and began again.


The whole point of this long, drawn out story was to show you that shit happens. My relapse stage lasted for 3-4 months! The main message I want to send is that, if you fail once, IT'S NOT OVER, if you fail fourteen times, IT'S STILL NOT OVER, if you fail three thousand times, IT IS NOT OVER!!!! I assure you that, even through restarting can be more mentally challenging that the initial start, it will be easier to get back to where you were than it was to get there in the first place. You already know what it takes, your body knows how it felt to be healthy, and you can do it again! Let this be your prompt to restart. Don't be content know that you WERE healthy last year. Become healthy NOW. You are so strong and capable to get back to optimal condition, and to nourish your body and treat it with the love that it deserves.