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I Just Realized I’m A Selfish Control Freak – But Maybe It’s A Good Thing?

I’ve been in Surfers Paradise for less than 24 hours and I’m already wondering what in God’s good name I’m doing here.

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I have been here before so I’ve only got myself to blame, but good grief. This. Place. Is. Horrible. I’d forgotten. Or maybe last time I came here I was young enough to find it all fun and frivolous.

The tourists with their tacky theme park t-shirts. The masses of brightly-colored polyester-filled retail stores. Greasy diner after greasy diner, with Starbucks serving as the only familiar beacon of hope amongst every other over-packed carb and sugar filled cafe. The fact that it’s sweaty humid despite the rain. And the (definitely my fault) crunchy sunburn covering my back, stiffening me up, and causing my mood to drop at least 50% points every time I twist or turn.

I feel disgusting. Feral, in fact. As though I’ve somehow gained 2 dress sizes since I left Melbourne yesterday morning. I also feel kind of dirty on the inside. And I didn’t even really eat anything I normally wouldn’t.

But I have missed my regular exercise, and I can really feel the difference. In fact, I’m pretty much sure that this is a major factor in my grumpiness. Not sure if that’s a good thing – I guess I should be able to go one day without working out! Truth is, I actually did exercise yesterday. We spent the day in Byron Bay after a ridiculously early departure from Melbourne. Byron was fantastic.

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The weather was perfect (apparently more so than we realized, given the aforementioned sunburn), we avoided the main strip, and yet still managed to enjoy some great coffee and quality food. We’d parked our car at the ‘non-main’ end of town in order to avoid the tourist traffic, and as a result ended up traipsing up and down the beach four times. I guess it took around 25 minutes each time, except for the one occasion when we detoured through the rain-forest. Very nice.

After we left Byron we stopped at Fitness First Mermaid Waters (undeservedly a Platinum club) for a quick weights session. Here’s a tip: crunchy sunburn chin-ups – not so fun. But overall, a good day. I felt great. Relaxed and energized despite less than 2 hours sleep the previous night.

So how is it that I can feel so absolutely foul less than 24 hours later?

If I’m completely honest, it comes back to one very important thing. Control. I don’t feel that I have it right now. I wanted to start the day with a workout and didn’t (boyfriend was desperate to hit the breaky buffet before it finished and I hadn’t hopped out of bed early enough to account for that). When I decided to do a quick run in the apartment gym I couldn’t (basement car park gym with petrol fumes a-plenty and no tready anyway). I then made a not-so-smart choice of ‘getting value for my money’ at the breakfast buffet and ate 3 mini-muffins on top of my 3-egg omelette, baked beans, bacon, and processed juice. In case that weren’t already enough to leave me feeling full and guilty I went back to the room, sat on the couch and ate chocolate while watching bad TV.

It was 10.30am and I had a week of this ahead of me. Fantastic.

If you think I’m whinging, thank your lucky stars that you’re not here with me – I just gave you the edited version. And I know, I know, I shouldn’t be working – as in writing this – while on holidays. Nor should I be guilt-tripping myself over a big breaky with no exercise beforehand.

Or should I?

Because the truth is that having just sat down and thrown up this little rant onto the computer (thanks Alisa Bowman), I feel a million or so percent better. I love writing once I’m in the zone, and I definitely needed to get that stuff off my chest. Blurting it out to you is a hell of a lot cheaper and more effective than therapy, and I get a blog post out of it to boot.

As far as the eating and non-training side of things – as much as people continue to tell me I should just ‘relax’ on holiday, I just can’t quite agree. Relax to me does not mean destroy my energy, my waistline, and ultimately my sense of pride in my health. Sure, this can mean I’m doing some scheduling whilst on vacation, I’m avoiding some group activities so I can trek up to Burleigh Heads Bikram tonight, and I’m no doubt going  to be repeatedly saying no to take-away pizza. But at the end of the day, it’s my holiday and I’ll be a selfish control freak if I want to.

So with that in mind –

What to do, what to do, about my trapped in a nightmare tourist town situation? I’ve considered jumping a plane home and having a holiday at home. Still thinking about it, in fact. We’re here with a bunch of people so it’s not as though I’d be running off on a romantic holiday for two. Still wouldn’t go down too well, me thinks. We do have a rental car and are planning an escape to Noosa at some point (no McDs, KFC, tacky strip clubs – awesome), but in the meantime I guess I’m going to have to suck it up. And I’m definitely going to have to do something about it. Because the control freak in me just isn’t going to put up with a week of progressive health & fitness decline or tourist activities that I really don’t want to be doing. And I’m selfish enough to be upfront about that –

Watch this space. And hey, thanks for listening.