Back to WORK! (End of Week 5)

OK: Brief check-in after an unplanned PAUSE in my fitness challenge. 

Girl, you'd better WORK!

SICK:

...I was sick for about a week with a cold, and even though the cold symptoms are gone, I'm still feeling run-down two weeks later. I've been hitting BURNOUT, so I made the smart choice to back off of my strenuous physical activity and just take it very easy for as long as it takes to get back to feeling healthy and energetic.

BURNOUT:

I'm feeling MUCH BETTER after a little two week pause in the program. I am starting to feel a little more motivated to workout and I'm not feeling so grumpy and moody. BURNOUT is when our bodies are trying to tell our minds that it's time to STOP. Too much work, too much stress, too much activity, too much wear-and-tear on the body, too much emotional stress-- it all adds up, and the body starts to give us some pretty serious signals that it needs a little more TLC and rest to handle these demands.

RECOVERY:

For me, that means backing off of the cardio and weights and switching to long, slow, mellow activities (relaxing bike rides and walks in the park). It also means relaxing my diet (ie, eating what I FEEL like for a few days, even if it means that my weight will go up on the scale... It's about RECOVERY and BALANCE, not about restriction at this point.) I am trying to focus on understanding my moods and signals better, giving myself permission to FEEL the FEELINGS, FOLLOW my IMPULSES, EXPRESS my EMOTIONS, and HAVE A LITTLE FUN.

WEIGHT GAIN? (NO PROB):

...Naturally, I'm anxious about the scale (ugh, always that darned scale), and I am quite certain that the weight loss part of my fitness goal has taken a big leap in the wrong direction. But I'm less concerned about the numbers than about my HEALTH, HAPPINESS, and WELL-BEING. Sometimes weight goes up and sometimes it goes down and sometimes it isn't a good indicator of our health and balance as a person. 

Kisses! Hang in there, it's gonna get better!

MOVING FORWARD:

Goals for weeks 6-10: 

• Get back to "blue cooler bag" eating (ie, pack meals for the day, and if it's not in the bag, don't eat it).
• Daily fitness activity: put my stress and difficult emotions into ACTION and don't just let stress build up or turn into mindless eating.
• Weight loss goal: focus on 0.5 to 1 kg per week (SLOW IT DOWN, GET IT RIGHT!)
• FOCUS = HEALTHY and HAPPY and FIT!