One of the hardest parts about life for me is accepting that I don’t always do what I want to do or make what I believe to be the best and healthiest choices for myself…and that doesn’t make me an absolute failure of a human being. I know that eating nutritious and healthy foods will make me feel happier and more productive. I know that if I’m running and working out regularly that running and working out regularly feels really good. I think one of the best feelings in the world is going for a nice long run and just feeling like I could run forever. But sometimes I find myself so far off the rails. It just happens. Maybe I got sick or had a bunch of stuff going on with kids and work or whatever. Doesn’t really matter what the reason is. Life is basically never going to go as smoothly and according to my plan as I think it should. So, I need to rally and get myself back on track. Ideally without beating myself up. The physical pain and stress of restoring discipline should be enough punishment without adding in a bunch of negative self-talk. But that is a struggle. I consider myself to be a very capable person and I get disappointed when I’m not living up to my own ideals. And a certain amount of negativity can be a good motivator to change. Like, I don’t want to feel this way anymore, so I’d better do something about it. The trick is to not sit in that negativity for long. Start turning things around and start focusing on the positives.
We recently bought our first house. Which is a very exciting thing. A very busy, time consuming, expensive and exciting thing. I now find myself off the rails. My path of healthy living is somewhere off in the distance and I need to figure out how to get back to it. Sometimes when this happens, I will take an extreme hard turn to get back there. I will follow a strict meal plan and exercise regimen until it feels natural again. That strategy has worked out just fine for me in the past. It does require some serious mental fortitude though. Self discipline is like a muscle. It needs to be trained and built up. Routines form and become easier and easier to follow. This time I have decided to take a week to ease back into the swing of things. I made the majority of our meals at home this week. Man, did that help. There is something so instantly satisfying and rewarding about cooking a nice meal. It’s really easy to pull positivity from that. There is this feeling of fulfillment that I am always looking for. When I find it, that means I’m doing the right thing. I’m doing exactly what I’m meant to be doing. I get that feeling when we’re gathered around the table eating a meal that I made. Throughout the week, I cooked dinner for 4 of the 5 weeknights. We did leftovers on Thursday because it is just a hectic night of chauffeuring kids around to their activities. Saturday night, I was simply too tired to cook. We had gotten up early and ran a trail race (*it was a really challenging race called the Soul Crusher AND we hadn’t trained for it. So. We were wiped out afterwards). Made terrible food choices all day that day. And I’m ok with it. The options were either: A) I didn’t stick to the meal plan, I’m still off the rails, I can’t do this, I give up. or B) Oops. Took a little detour. Life goes on. Definitely B. Sunday didn’t go much better. But Monday. That’s a new day. First day of all day healthy eating. And meal planning. I think I’ll even hang up a little white board with the meals for the week.
Also getting back into the swing of working out this week. We decided to try running on the bike path near our new house. Holy moly. That is a hilly route. We ran mostly in silence except for the moment when Steven said “how do you feel about turning this 8 miler into 6?” I can’t remember my exact response, but something to the effect of “Oh my god yes, please.” Then I got chatty the last mile or so with some whining about knee pain. Ooph. That was a rough one. The next day we went to the gym to do some upper body. Arms, back and chest. My armpits were very sore for a couple days after that. Hopefully it was worth it and they’ll look very toned soon. The whole objective that first day back at the gym was to practice some restraint. Light weights. Sometimes I want to go right back at it like I haven’t missed a beat. Then I can’t move for several days. I want to be sore. Feels like I’ve accomplished something. But if I get too sore, I don’t really accomplish anything else for awhile.
On Saturday morning we ran in our trail race. I’m going to go on a whole tangent about where I now stand on the importance of training for races and events…another time. Today I’ll just say that we made it. The beauty of running with Steven is that we are able to push each other when we need it. I needed it that day. I struggled and basically could not wait for it to be over. But eventually it was over and I got to feel really proud for finishing that effing race. And it strengthened my determination to get back on track. I don’t like struggling that bad through a run. I didn’t enjoy much of it and I know that was because I wasn’t prepared. I robbed myself of the reward of feeling my hard work pay off. The reward I got that day was from grit. Don’t get me wrong. I love the feeling of doing something that seems impossible. I seek out that feeling too. But a race gives me the opportunity to feel both the reward of grit and the reward of hard work paying off. I only got one reward that day. But I got the motivation to work harder and get my life back to the path I want to be on. Not instantly. I kinda laid around like a bum the rest of the day. We hit the gym Sunday morning and did a leg day. Hurt like a mother. Woke up on Monday morning, cringing from posterior pain going up the stairs to the kitchen…where I made some steel cut oats with apples and cinnamon. Starting the day off on track. Meal planning, scheduling our runs and workouts, the routine falling back into place. And the peace of mind that comes from a plan and a routine that I know will make me feel fulfilled, healthy and productive. Back on that path that I know is leading somewhere good.