Later On

I realized, after recovering, that I was sick this past weekend. I knew at the time that I had practically no energy on Saturday—unable to do Nordic, just got through Pilates. I also felt sort of queasy, so it may have been mild food poisoning from soup that may have gone off. My energy level was quite low, and I also ate too much for dinner (and after) and felt bad about the result.

Sunday I did get through Nordic, but still ate too much: had 3 of those butternut squash rounds instead of 1 as I intended. I just was powerless to resist their pull. I went to bed at 6:30 and slept until 7:00 the next day, just getting up during the night for one 45-minute period. And at lunch I took a very sound nap. I awakened from the nap feeling much better, though.

In fact, I felt surprisingly well. My dinner (salad with some chicken) seemed exceptionally tasty, and I realized that I didn’t feel queasy at all. My mood was much improved as well. When I opened the fridge and saw the remaining butternut squash rounds, I thought to myself not to look at them because the previous night I obsessed about them until I had to eat more.

I filled my iced tea glasses partway with iced tea, then looked for the sparkling water: I was out. I opened the fridge to get more tea, saw the container of butternut squash rounds, and thought again that I mustn’t look at them because I couldn’t resist, but then I realized that I had already forgotten about them. Somehow, though I recognized their appeal, I didn’t obsess about them and finally break down and eat one (or more).

I was journaling this, thinking about how good I felt and how tasty my light dinner was (chicken and salad) and how I didn’t want more—and yet how only the day before I seemed powerless to resist the appeal of the butternut squash rounds.

Because I’ve been listening to Robinson Crusoe, I flashed on the standard situation encountered in older novels: the poor wretch racked by illness whose spirit is brought low and thus fails to resist temptation. I realized that the description applied exactly to me: my spirits were indeed low because I was sick, and the temptation to eat the squash was too strong to resist—but the next day, feeling better, throwing off that temptation was absolutely nothing. The old description, instead of being some sort of moral lesson, was simply a statement of the facts: illness –> low spirits –> unable to resist temptation.

And because my different reactions were just a day apart so that I could clearly recall them, the contrast was particularly noticeable.

I told The Wife about my fascinating discovery, and she said that everyone knew that being sick reduced one’s willpower significantly.

I had no idea. And yes, "willpower" was exactly the word: both my will to exercise and my will to avoid overeating were much weaker, and it indeed seems that illness was the cause.

I’m feeling much better today, and having no trouble at all of following the diet. It was a bit of a struggle to do the Nordic, but I never felt the least bit like throwing it over. I imagine the difficulty is simply that I’m still recovering.