Where Have You Been?!

I know I went AWOL for a while there and with good reason.  Didn't give up on my health goals-- I've been maintaining my weight right around 170 and I walk everywhere.  The boys are in school, I get in 5 hours of walking every week just doing that.  I did stop doing challenges because it interfered with my ability to focus on writing and illustrating.  The routine of long exercise sessions paired with showering (which was a little excessive but who wants to feel sticky?) was still disruptive with my current ambitious goals so I've been happy to maintain.  I do still stretch and do a few push-ups, pay attention to my muscles and so on.  I've had no aches from working, as I do take necessary short breaks.

I was doing some pondering and I have wondered about certain biases in this area too.  We see the super fit in an unflattering light sometimes because of that interference in goals we are prioritizing.  It's not that they aren't able to do plenty that engages their brains and their brains DO benefit from their overall health.  Their tendency to dissect their entire workout and focus on their milestones isn't unfamiliar to me now, but my attention has needed a lot more focus that doesn't compete well with that.  So the bias against some people's conversations tends to make us think: is this all they care about?  Well, no.  Absolutely not.  Even the most focused people tend to have a wide range of hobbies but I can tell you for certain that some hobbies to do not translate well on a play by play unless you can immediately relate.  I can tell one friend all about the joys of crochet doll furniture but another will want to know what movies I've watched.  Explaining what you've learned to someone who has no clue, they might let you do it out of love for you, but their eyes are gonna glass over and for them to be a part of the conversation, their questions will be brief or they'll switch topic.

A lot of workouts ask you to take a chunk of time out of your day and not think.  Either you're focusing on breathing, not injuring yourself or it's just too vigorous to form a thought.  Hell, today I caught myself wondering if joggers thought normal thoughts, if at all, or if it bounced out like trying to talk while jogging.  It's not that I thought, they weren't emptying their brain for the rest of the day, I just wondering how it competed with their other priorities and what was their level of discipline.  Yeah, it's hard as hell to turn off, but the payoff is a huge turn-ON on many different levels.  My fitness friends and I can all agree that it works wonder on confidence, energy and sexual health.

Not doing vigorous workouts hasn't taken those things away.  In fact, I still bank that energy after a brisk walk, enjoy the throb of muscle and the whir of blood circulation.  I still use that energy to be efficient in my current goals, whereas there were always the keen aches and occasional losses of energy from the vigor too.  I can still take the stairs up and down the second story of my house when I'm absent minded enough to repeatedly forget to grab things I need.  My brain isn't exactly faltering, it's just distracted with one of many other things I'm itemizing as I go.

As a practice, I am always thinking about where perceptions might be skewed.  Just because I know fitness, I don't automatically assume all athletes face the same challenges or make their whole life revolve around it.  It's not always about that bikini body or how much creatine they're pounding.  There are those types TOO, sure, but they are the extreme example and there are also drawbacks to the super fit.  It absolutely does influence the production of hormones and stresses the body, but when people are aiming to be 'fit', their goals are not the same.  Be it vanity, health, seeing what they're capable of, etc., it's okay to ask something about their journey that they aren't disclosing that you are genuinely curious about.  You may want to know how it affects them, positively or negatively, or wonder if their bravado is masking a struggle that they are working to overcome.  Their focus might be on how many reps they did, but you can channel some things more interesting to you that they might be just as excited to talk about.

Ah, the art of conversation...

Where's my Damn Wagon...

Okay, so I KINDA fell off the wagon.  I did but I didn't.  I'll explain...

Thing is, I did P90X... up until the last 4 weeks and things started to crash.  Not life events of any kind this time around-- in fact, things were looking up there!  What did happen was the kids got back in school and that extra one hour of walking 5 days a week crept in and, for all the vigorous exercise, I was ill-prepared for the addition.

So I learned pretty quickly that I needed more water and more food, so low calorie was out if I wanted to finish the program.  Or so I thought.  It seemed as if my body went into a really stubborn state of low energy and painful twinges.  So I gave it its way and struggled to motivate myself to pick up that week for 3 weeks.  I was only getting in the first half of the week before I was forced to go into recovery mode.

I know that part of the problem is that I was not feeding the muscle.  However, I also don't want any more gains.  I had the feeling that it was time to focus on Cardio.  Except my trial with Turbofire didn't hit the spot either.  Mostly I just felt like I was flailing around uncoordinated and if I was worried about injury before, that fear only intensified.

Here's the thing: I became a published author at the beginning of August.  I had spent all summer doing the illustrations and formatting to make it happen and it became the thing I needed the energy for.  I have 8 more books in the series to do, the next I plan to release by the end of September (I finished the writing and editing about half a year ago-- it's the formatting and illustrating that necessitates the wait.  In case you were wondering what kind of garbage only takes two months to write...  That part took the better part of ten years, so exhale!).

In truth, I am maintaining my weight easily with just the walking and reasonable eating.  I take a multivitamin daily and I continue to enjoy doing the things I love.  Yeah, I can still stand to lose 20-40 pounds (if I'm going for some serious overachieving), but I'm also at a healthy weight NOW, one that puts me out of risk for weight-related health issues.  I don't get winded running up stairs, I can bend effortlessly, I still haul about 40 gallons of water once every week or two.  My journey isn't over, but I have reprioritized from any loss/gain into a sort of maintenance, at least until I release the second book.  When I take that celebratory break, I'm going to reevaluate, see if there is a place for more cardio for the time being.

Don't be afraid to extend the timeframe of those goals when other priorities come up.  I still weigh weekly to make sure I'm keeping up maintenance, I still don't binge or forget to eat.  Health is still top priority.  In fact, I never would have been able to chase my dreams if I hadn't made the chance.  A bikini body is not.  It's September now...  I can pick up the torch again in a few months.  For now, I have a few dreams worth chasing that won't wait.