It's quite remarkable how many good habits I've dropped lately. From the aforementioned gym-slacking and taxi-taking to sleep patterns, fluid intake, and sugar consumption, it's all gone a bit to pot.
Annoying.
However, not insurmountable. So this week I will be:
1. Resurrecting the Spreadsheet. Harder to say "Oh, I'm fine..." if the graphs say "Er, not really..."
2. Setting myself some short-, medium-, and long-term goals again.
3. Starting blogging about all this again (I suspect this lost out to the "writing a new poem a day for every day of April" thing I've been doing (with running-mates this year)...)
4. Starting thinking about teaming up with others who have similar goals. (i.e. people who aren't super-fit but who like walking/ are happy to job gently beside my fast walking pace; want to cycle at all/ more/ further/ faster; want to use my gym at the same time as I do, etc.)
5. Celebrating the small victories again.
6. Starting to look out for a physio who likes talking about weights, press-ups, etc.
7. Having a look through this book what I bought, to see if that's any cop (got to sort this bloody neck/ shoulder thing out).
So yeah - see above; you'll be hearing more from me on this.
Right. As you were...
Monday 28 April 2014
Thursday 24 April 2014
Returns
So, I went back to to the gym last night. After a gap of {checks} nearly 6 weeks. Hmm. The chronology (for those of you interested in the anatomy of excuses) goes something like this:
14th March - final gym session before week of rest before The Walk
23rd March - The Walk
24th March - Beginning of further week off gym to recover
31st March* - "My legs still hurt, a few more days off won't hurt"
2nd & 3rd April - Stomach bug, off work
4th April - "Still feel wobbly"
7th April* - "I think I'm getting a cold"
14th April* - "I keep getting nosebleeds"
16th April - "I feel really mentally/ emotionally feeble, AND I miss the gym... hmmm"
17th-21st April - Away on holiday
22nd April - "I'm just recovering from lack of sleep on holiday"
22nd April - "Actually, sod it, I'm going to the gym tomorrow"
So I did. No more excuses, no more bollocksing about, waiting for the stars to align for exercise. I've spent weeks not even walking very far in the mornings or evenings, wasting money on taxis to get me into work. While there are depressing, stressful, annoying things happening in my life, and I can't fix them with stationary bikes, I can:
1. damn well tire myself out in a good way so that I get the sleep necessary to help problem-solve in my poor brain;
2. feel a sense of achievement in clocking goals and doing a difficult thing well;
3. get back that sense of purpose and personal puissance that comes with feeling physically fit;
4. treat myself well - that's actually treat myself well, by giving myself the gift of fitness, rather than "treat" myself, which amounts to doing a series of passive things that are actually quite harmful (sitting around in unhealthy poses, eating crappy food, staying up late to watch films/ read books that will still be there tomorrow, getting cabs instead of the bus, mithering, "having a rest from physio", etc.).
5. be kind ("you had a few rubbish weeks, let's move on"), and not punish myself ("stupid cow! give me a gazillion press-ups so that you injure yourself, can't sleep right, and feel even more wretched! you deserve grief for feeling bad!")
6. get myself a new goal to aim for.
Yesterday morning I just grabbed my gym bag, ignoring the fact that the kit was not clean (yes, I got myself clean socks, I'm not a total barbarian!), and set off after work (after realising that I'd been killing time with extra bits of work that could wait, presumably trying unconsciously to make it "too late" to go) to the gym, walking fast, trying not to overthink things.
Luckily, my brain still seems to retain the well-worn groove that came from doing that very thing twice a week or so for eight weeks, so as soon as I'd flipped the "walking to the gym from work with my gym bag in my hand" switch, I was fine. In fact, I'm worried that I did too much on the stationary bike because I was working to the old pattern from 6 weeks ago.
(I've just worked it out explicitly - I've now spent nearly as much time Not Doing Exercise and Being Inactive Again as I did the opposite. Darn it!)
I did 20 minutes or so of sliding resistance on the recumbent bike, then about 6 minutes on the rowing machine. I figured that my neck/ shoulder problem was up to it. I'll monitor over the next couple of days for pins-and-needles, etc.
Yes, I stretched out afterwards. And yes, I'm a bit sore today. And yes, my heart-rate was more elevated than it would have been back in March, but less than it was in January. So, you know, I haven't lost loads of fitness... :)
14th March - final gym session before week of rest before The Walk
23rd March - The Walk
24th March - Beginning of further week off gym to recover
31st March* - "My legs still hurt, a few more days off won't hurt"
2nd & 3rd April - Stomach bug, off work
4th April - "Still feel wobbly"
7th April* - "I think I'm getting a cold"
14th April* - "I keep getting nosebleeds"
16th April - "I feel really mentally/ emotionally feeble, AND I miss the gym... hmmm"
17th-21st April - Away on holiday
22nd April - "I'm just recovering from lack of sleep on holiday"
22nd April - "Actually, sod it, I'm going to the gym tomorrow"
(* dates approximate)
So I did. No more excuses, no more bollocksing about, waiting for the stars to align for exercise. I've spent weeks not even walking very far in the mornings or evenings, wasting money on taxis to get me into work. While there are depressing, stressful, annoying things happening in my life, and I can't fix them with stationary bikes, I can:
1. damn well tire myself out in a good way so that I get the sleep necessary to help problem-solve in my poor brain;
2. feel a sense of achievement in clocking goals and doing a difficult thing well;
3. get back that sense of purpose and personal puissance that comes with feeling physically fit;
4. treat myself well - that's actually treat myself well, by giving myself the gift of fitness, rather than "treat" myself, which amounts to doing a series of passive things that are actually quite harmful (sitting around in unhealthy poses, eating crappy food, staying up late to watch films/ read books that will still be there tomorrow, getting cabs instead of the bus, mithering, "having a rest from physio", etc.).
5. be kind ("you had a few rubbish weeks, let's move on"), and not punish myself ("stupid cow! give me a gazillion press-ups so that you injure yourself, can't sleep right, and feel even more wretched! you deserve grief for feeling bad!")
6. get myself a new goal to aim for.
Yesterday morning I just grabbed my gym bag, ignoring the fact that the kit was not clean (yes, I got myself clean socks, I'm not a total barbarian!), and set off after work (after realising that I'd been killing time with extra bits of work that could wait, presumably trying unconsciously to make it "too late" to go) to the gym, walking fast, trying not to overthink things.
Luckily, my brain still seems to retain the well-worn groove that came from doing that very thing twice a week or so for eight weeks, so as soon as I'd flipped the "walking to the gym from work with my gym bag in my hand" switch, I was fine. In fact, I'm worried that I did too much on the stationary bike because I was working to the old pattern from 6 weeks ago.
(I've just worked it out explicitly - I've now spent nearly as much time Not Doing Exercise and Being Inactive Again as I did the opposite. Darn it!)
I did 20 minutes or so of sliding resistance on the recumbent bike, then about 6 minutes on the rowing machine. I figured that my neck/ shoulder problem was up to it. I'll monitor over the next couple of days for pins-and-needles, etc.
Yes, I stretched out afterwards. And yes, I'm a bit sore today. And yes, my heart-rate was more elevated than it would have been back in March, but less than it was in January. So, you know, I haven't lost loads of fitness... :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)