WLC Learning #5 & #4

WLC Learning # 5 - Rigid Nutrition Makes You A Beast

I suppose I mean this in the best and worst sense, but mostly the worst. On the positive side, my workouts have probably never been better. I feel better, stronger, faster at the gym. Any work on the bar feels like I've shed a 10 lb weight vest and my lifts feel more explosive.

Outside of the gym, the Whole Life Challenge turned me into the awful kind of beast. If I wasn't in a blood sugar-crash rage thrashing around my kitchen groping for anything to eat, I was breaking down mentally and emotionally at the feeling of lost control over my whole life, or I was in a Whole Life Zombie emotionless, energy-less state. That's like three monsters in one.

And I know that I wasn't alone in this beastly transformation, because I had the displeasure of embarking in this hell with my fiancé (whom I love).

WLC Learning #4 - Nutrition Is Terrible For Relationships

My fiancé (whom I love) and I did our best to support each other during the Whole Life Challenge. Make no mistake that I required much more support than Matt, who is about to win the whole thing. But he, too, experienced the sugar-crash rages and constant zombie state (also a steroidal-level of power, intensity and energy at the gym, a beast of its own variety).

So we took turns raging out about where our next meal was going to come from, doing our best but often failing to not snap at each other to feed the cats, wash a dish, put away laundry–You know, life-critical things that justify high levels of stress.

We otherwise would sit motionless and broken on the sofa watching TV, not talking to each other, with barely enough energy to rise and shuffle ourselves to bed to crash to sleep.

Matt was a saint for putting up with my ugly three-headed monster and on more than one occasion I voiced my half-joking concern that this Whole Life Challenge would cause him to break up with me.

On his good days, Matt would feel amped and talk about wanting to continue the Whole Life Challenge after it ends. That will not be happening.

Cumulative Deductions: 38