Juneathon Day 2:On habits and eating

2011 Streak Day 153/365: Cycle - 13.71 miles, Time 54min 38sec, Weather - warm, with a grey haze

Squirrels playing with buckets

Part 1

Last night I after I had finished watching a dvd I made a cup of tea and some peanut butter on water biscuits. As I bit into a biscuit I enjoyed watching the way the peanut butter held the crumbling fragments together and I concentrated on finishing before the whole thing fell to pieces. It was far from elegant eating but I was enjoying my snack until I realised I should not have been having it at all.

Damn I thought - why do I keep doing this? Why do I graze without thinking, merely because I am a little peckish and something is easily available? How can I do it without thinking, do it before my will-power has even got its boots on?

Damn.

Juneathon is all very well and establishing the habit of exercise is an excellent objective. Being smart about training, so that each session has a focus and objective, is even better. But the thing that would make the most difference to my running times is to lose some weight but that is something I find difficult because it requires 24hr attention.

I need to remind myself to go to bed each night feeling slightly hungry but this is easy to forget as there are so many little habits about eating that bypass the conscious mind.

There is a wonderful quote from Dr Johnson about habit (there is always a wonderful quote from Dr Johnson on almost any subject)

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

I think I will have to think about that the next time I reach for the jar of peanut butter.

Part 2

Today's exercise was a straightforward ride along a familiar route to the field of alpacas. Unfortunately the alpacas were too far away and would have looked like little furry balls in any photo. Instead I took a picture of some buckets, mainly because a couple of squirrels had been exploring them and I had been amused watching them scurrying about.