Lesson Learned: Take Care of Yourself First – Healing Journey Day 52

Journal:
Today was starting to be a good day, minus the fact that I woke up exhausted with both eyes bloodshot. I do have minor soreness in my legs and back from the soccer game yesterday, but honestly I wasn’t doing too badly. I do have to admit that my stomach felt terrible this morning, almost like I was going to be sick. I’m not entirely sure what caused this. I know I ate more calories than normal yesterday, and I also know that I ate really late at night, trying to stuff in as much of that salad as I could. So realistically, I have to quit eating so late, get more sleep, spend less time on the computer, and drink more water. I think my body is DYING for some water, and I have to respond.

On a side note, I washed my hair for the first time in two weeks this morning with a regular shampoo and conditioner. It feels so extremely clean that it’s almost too much. It actually became full of static throughout the day and felt much drier than normal. I may have to reevaluate the use of traditional soaps at all.

So I didn’t leave myself enough time to prep my grapes this morning. That meant trying to find time to wash them and eat them throughout the morning which did not work. I maybe had one cup worth of grapes out of the whole bag. This was not a good start to the day. By the time lunch rolled around, we were reminded that today was a pizza party day and that just threw me off course completely. Our pizza was late arriving and I wanted to fill my students up on something healthy before they ate junk, so I shared my grapes with them. They loved them and were so thankful, but of course this left not much for me. Let’s just say, the rest of the day was completely thrown off. I was so tired I contemplated sleeping during my spares, my patience was not at my normal level, I wasn’t dealing with things the way I normally do, and I knew that I couldn’t go home until late because I had a meeting after school and a few deadlines to meet today. Today was the first day in a long time that I will actually say that I wasn’t handling life well. My body was telling me it had had enough, that it was time to rest, to stop working towards deadlines, to stop staying up so late working on the computer, and to start taking a break.

When my school day was finally over, I went home and instead of resting right away, decided to get my town things done. I was short two peaches for the week’s menu so I stopped in to the grocery store and got some. I then went to the gym and completed three different ab exercises, as well as ran 16 interval-style laps in the group fitness room. I was DEAD by the end. My legs were so exhausted from two days of running, which is something I never do. I was sore; it was incredible. My legs definitely need a break to heal and recover. Surprisingly my lower back was aching as well which I can only assume is from the kicking that was incorporated with soccer, but who knows.

Later in the evening, I started getting this pinpoint pain in my knee. Now that was scary. Thankfully, it didn’t last forever but it was definitely the weirdest thing I ever experienced. I am going to have to be extremely careful when playing soccer, warming up properly and cooling down, stretch all the while. I need this body to last me a long time.

Guys, if you can learn any advice from today, from my experience, let it be this: You will not be successful unless you are taking care of yourself first. Get the right amount of sleep. Drink a lot of water. Rest your eyes from too much screen time. Rest your brain from the duties of each day. If you are a Christian, take the time to spend with God so He can give you His rest. And really fill your own bucket before stepping out to fill others. It’s not only important, it’s essential. You will be much more successful if you follow those steps.

Review of Symptoms:
-Tired
-Energy is good
-Short-term pinpoint knee pain?
-Slight tongue scraping is being needed again
-Stomach is NOT happy
-Acne is not so good.
-Leg and lower back muscles are so sore.
-Bloodshot eyes
-Feeling the dehydration
-Hair is full of static!

Weight at the end of the day = 170.6 lbs (up 3.8 lbs from yesterday… ugh…)

Total Calories = 1877 (64% carbs, 14% fat, 22% protein)

Multi-Day Mono-Juice Feasting – Healing Journey Day 6

Journal:
Guys/Gals, I made it! I honestly can’t believe I made it through 5 days without any type of food. Oh my goodness. I was so scared of doing this journey, not sure how I would be able to bypass situations where food would be all around me, or with my students even opening their food for them. But I did it and never even once even picked up a piece of food. I am so proud of how far I’ve made it on this journey.

Now last night, I did manage to sleep pretty much through the night, only waking up once instead of multiple times like the night before. And once again, I woke up feeling like a normal human being. The stomach pain was gone and I was able to get out of bed with no problems this morning! I went straight upstairs and got my first apple juice. 🙂 Yes, for 3 days I will be drinking apple juice. I have always found apple juice easy on my stomach so I figured this would be a great beginning juice for my body.

I, of course, was still a little worried about how my body would react to the apple juice. Though after the first few sips and only a very minor uncomfortable feeling from my stomach, I knew it was going to do down well. Oh how happy I was! The taste of apple juice was so amazing, although I noticed there was a slight off-taste. Come to find out, my tongue was covered in white. I had heard about this happening from dry and water fasters but had not noticed it until today. Yuck. Thankfully, it does come off with either scraping or rigorous tongue brushing. I have a cleaning at the dentist tomorrow and I can only imagine what they would have said to me with a tongue like that!

A question I have been asked is what is the difference between juice “fasting” and “juice feasting.” Juice fasting is where you are on a specified amount of juices (specific calories). Juice feasting is where you are still limited to only juice, but you do not have to stick with a certain caloric guideline. Now of course, you do not want to turn it into juice binging where you are over consuming more than your body wants, but if you know your body well, you should be able to tell when you are really hungry or not. I am choosing to juice feast because I do not believe in limiting calories. Yes, I just spent 5 days eliminating calories from my diet, but that was to fast. If you make a decision to fast, then you are usually doing it for a specific reason outside of weight loss such as for religious reasons or body healing. Since I am spanning the healing spectrum, mine was to experience the healing aspects though I was also intrigued through my walk in Christianity to partake in such a journey because God calls us to take care of our bodies and this journey is hopefully going to help me see how to get my body to be the best that it can be. Plus, as I mentioned in my introduction to this journey, it was also an experiment to see if we can erase the hold that food has on us. Yes, in the long run we depend on food to live; we have to. But instead of not being able to pass by food that is not good for us and simply having intense cravings or even those that can’t help but binge on food because they can’t seem to stop, that is another part of my journey. And so far, I am beating all of those typical situations and for that reason, this journey has been good.

So I managed to actually have a pretty good day at school. Though I seemed to have to talk to my class a little more than normal, one of my toughest students actually had one of his best days today so that alone was phenomenal. And how did the juice treat me? So good. I didn’t feel like falling asleep all the time; I actually did not plan my walks. I didn’t feel like sitting down all the time; I felt confident when I walked. I just felt so much better.

Do I still feel like eating food? You know, my thoughts towards food have decreased a lot. Sure, the nice croissant (I have a student that has been bringing croissants to school everyday) does sound nice, but just having some sweet, delicious, pure apple juice to sip on all day is absolutely amazing. My body can definitely tell that the energy is coming back.

Is my apple juice fresh pressed? Unfortunately no. In fact, the apple juice I have for today and tomorrow are not even organic. I did my best to find juices that were organic, but the price difference is astronomical. So you will see that most of my juices are organic, but today’s and tomorrow’s are not. The one qualification for my juices were that they had to only include one ingredient: the ingredient being whichever fruit whose juice I was drinking that day.

So, I’m going to hand out a TMI WARNING again because this next part is not so pretty. I will keep it to one paragraph. I don’t really enjoy sharing these parts because they can be considered “gross”, but incase someone does decide to embark on this journey or one similar, I want you to be prepared for things that can happen. If you read my day 5 entry, you will notice that I couldn’t “eliminate”. Well, to my horror/surprise, I don’t even have to try today. Lo’ and behold, it’s essentially a watery liquid. Yes, I know it’s graphic. It did go back to normal by the end of the day, but the first half of the day was the adjustment period. My stomach “gurgled” more than I think it has ever gurgled before with the adjustment of an “energy source” coming back into its system. It made today a little trickier since I’m obviously working but I managed to take a tiny break away from the classroom whenever I needed it so it worked out alright.

So after I came home, I actually did not feel tired at all! However, I did lay down to watch some YouTube again, and noticed the beginning of that awful acid reflux/heartburn feeling again. Thankfully, it didn’t really turn into anything.

I did get up and go to the gym, although I kind of wondered afterwards if I should have done the cardio or not. I did 30 minutes of easy stationary cycling. The reason being, remember that clenching of muscles feeling I described previously? I had that feeling bad tonight. The best way I can think to describe it is to imagine doing a crunch with all of your ab muscles straining, then someone punching you. But instead of being repetitious, it was a continuous state. Now that is a feeling for the books but one that I hope goes away soon. Yes, I did try bending backwards to stretch my abs and to see if my stomach muscles would pull, but they didn’t meaning they weren’t actually always engaged. For some reason that was just the feeling I was having.

For the first time all week, I actually felt tired. I tried to stay up past 11, but my eyes were fighting me. As much as I still wanted to do things, this actually made me happy because instead of me having to decide when I go to bed because I’m not “that tired”, my body actually was acting normal and demanded sleep. This I can appreciate.

Review of Symptoms:
Acne is worse and yet the same. The pimples are still more pale than before, but I have tiny bumps all over my face. I’m not appreciating it. But I have also heard of this happening as a detox byproduct. There is a reason why the saying goes: It will get worse before it gets better. My tongue was COVERED in a white substance. Again, this is something I’ve heard is associated with detox so tongue scraping is now something I have to do. I haven’t reported this in awhile, but my skin still stays red more easily than before. My hair is still less greasy than it normally would be by this point. Had more energy, feeling stronger. Internal “movement” was much easier today. Heartburn/acid reflux was only the most minimal while laying down this evening. I had a constant feeling of ab muscle clenching while a dull ache of a punch to the stomach at the same time that lasted throughout the evening. My body actually demanded sleep around 11:00 pm which is awesome!

Weight at the end of the day = 180.8 lbs (0 lbs down in 24 hours, total of 8 lbs down in 5 days)

Total Calories = 1811.2 (99% carbs, 1% protein, 0% fat)

When Your Spouse Is Your Manager/Business Partner

I hate to admit this, but today, my husband and I had a run-in. I’m not proud of it, I’m not proud of the way I acted, and it definitely was a huge series of miscommunications. But I’m sharing this for anyone else out there who may struggle with the same thing.

Now, my husband is not my manager nor my business partner. He’s really more of my personal trainer. But the aforementioned names popped up from a tv series I sometimes watch called, “The Divas”. If you haven’t seen it before, the “Divas” are the females of the WWE. The show more or less follows their lives, no different than the Kardashians or some other show. Anyways, one of the “Divas”, Eva Marie, has her husband as her manager, which seems to work well most of the time. However, in one episode, she was struggling with something, and she yelled at her husband saying that sometimes he just needs to be her husband and not always her manager.

Now, imagine the struggle. Their lives are literally personal and work intertwined all the time. There is definitely a need to draw the line of when it is appropriate to be a husband, and when it is appropriate to be a manager. Work does take up a majority of people’s lives, but it’s important to just be with each other and forget work for awhile.

Thankfully, my husband is only my personal trainer at the gym. And quite honestly, though we’ve struggled training together in the past, I’ve really enjoyed training with him the past week and a bit. I will admit, I complain every once in awhile about too many sets or reps, or exercises that I absolutely hate, but overall, it’s been good. I’ve actually had fun with him and he’s done so well at learning to ignore my complaints because that just tells me I need to do it regardless of what I think. It works for me. I need that tough attitude in the gym sometimes.

However, today was a different story. I put in a HARD leg workout on Monday. We then stupidly worked out after midnight last night doing chest, and I was a little upset that he made me change my grip and I know my chest didn’t get the same stretch that it usually does, plus my shoulders were more tired today from the odd grip. So let’s just say we went to bed around 2 in the morning.

We were back in the gym by 11 this morning. I was tired, not feeling 100%, and my legs are so sore. We get to the gym, and the first thing he tells me to do is more squats. I was a little ticked because he knows my legs are killing me already. But I didn’t throw that much of a fuss (ok, a small one), and stormed off and did them. I actually was thankful for doing them by the end, not that I wasn’t a stupid kind of sore, but my form felt better than it has in awhile for some reason. So it actually was ok.

After squats, we began the back workout, except he started me right off with one set of deadlifts with the heaviest weight I could. Now mix tiredness with soreness with already knowing my body is not in tip top ability shape. Had I done 1 or 2 more reps than I did, I’m pretty sure my back would be seriously injured. That just set me off. And for some reason, instead of ignoring me today, my husband wanted me to tell him what was wrong. So I told him about the squats and then thanked him, but then told him about the deadlifts and how I should have built up rather than going to my heaviest right away, and then told him how back day was too close to leg day because I could tell it was affecting my workout. This did not go over well, and I was more than visibly upset for the rest of the time in the gym.

Towards the end of our workout, when I was doing my bicep exercises, my husband came over and apologized to me. I still was in a bad mood though because by this point, not only was I feeling everything else I mentioned, my back was a little tender, my rib problems were annoying me, my wrists were cracking, my forearms were sore, and I literally felt like I had nothing left to give in the gym; I was honestly on “zombie” mode. My brain had shut out a long time ago. My body was just going on its own. My form suffered, I had to lift lighter, and when I finally was doing my last set of barbell curls, I only made it to 7 reps at a lower weight range than normal, ended up dropping the barbell and ran to sit down to hide my face to stop myself from crying. I literally had nothing left to give. My body was done.

Now, my husband didn’t know I was on the verge of crying; he just knew I was ignoring him, wouldn’t look at him, and he left to go to the car. I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t want to cry at the gym.

There are so many things that went wrong in this story. There are miscommunications, there was the fact that bringing up things at the gym is one thing my husband asked me not to do because it’s his stress-free place, and I definitely and visibly did not make it stress free today. There’s also the fact that of any day, I wish my husband would have been more of my husband today and realized that it’s been awhile since I’ve been at the gym, and my body is not up to the recovery level it used to be. Just so many things gone wrong…

The thing is, we came home, we talked it out, and everything is ok again. My mood was just too toxic to have a healthy conversation at the gym. I needed to replenish some of the energy stores in my exhausted body, and he needed to cool down from the attitudes he received from me. We’re ok. It’s just learning the fine line of what we each expect, what we want, and how to know when to be that personal trainer, manager, or business partner, and when to be the more sensitive husband. I will admit, it’s not the easiest, especially when I ask him to not give in to me at the gym. Today was just a different story.

So ladies and gentlemen, remember that even if you do ever get into some type of work-related situation with your spouse, make sure you know when to be that loving spouse, or when to act in a business way. It’s important and necessary to keep your relationship functioning in a healthy way.

Week 10 Day 6: A Bad-Happy Day

It was so nice to wake up and feel the relief of parent-teacher interviews being over. In a way, I felt free.

I had a chiropractor and massage appointment today, but my car is still not running. So I booked a taxi ahead of time, something I haven’t done in a very long time.

Because I booked my ride ahead of time, and had not fallen back asleep after my husband left for work, I noticed I actually had a bit of time to play with! Something I haven’t had in months! So I did a couple loads of laundry and took the time to call my French grandparents, my father, and my mom, stepfather, and brothers. I feel like I accomplished so much in that short amount of time.

I went to my appointments and got surprising comments from my massage therapist (chiro I think was a hair worse than normal). During the massage, the only tight place she encountered was actually in my arms, as surprising as that was. But she was not overly concerned about that.

After the massage, she asked me if I had been doing the stretch routine we had designed over the summer, and I told her that I had to be honest, and that I haven’t been as much as I should. She then asked if I had been working my legs hard, to which I told her yes especially after PR’ing my leg press this week. She looked at me strange and mentioned how this is the least tight I have been since starting my massages several months ago.

Together, we figured that my body was in fact being overstretched, even though I was almost religiously doing a 15 minute stretch routine everyday. Sometimes my body would regress rather than progress, and since I’ve given it a break, it’s actually progressed more. As strange as it sounds, that’s honestly what has been happening, and so she encouraged me to keep doing what I was doing while making sure to listen to my body. She was sincerely impressed.

I came home (another taxi ride) and shortly after received a phone call. Those neighbours that called about my dogs before to both our landlady and Animal Patrol? Well apparently they called our landlady again, but this time saying we slam our doors all hours of the night. Um, I’m a Christian school teacher who doesn’t drink, doesn’t party, quite honestly doesn’t have many friends in the area whom I go out and do things with ever, and realistically, the only thing I do is go to the gym. But slamming my door? And all hours of the night? I honestly don’t know what I ever did to these neighbours. I know this building is 50+ years old, and there have been several times where I’ve run to open our front door when it was only people knocking on our neighbour’s door. You can honestly even hear every time they run up and down the stairs. One time, we could hear the tv through the wall at 3 in the morning. I don’t call on them because I get it. I don’t expect perfection when the building is this old. But I am wondering if this is the same thing they’re calling me on. And my biggest thing is why they never even say hello let alone ask me about it.

At our school, when a parent has a problem, the principal directs them directly to us before she’ll step in. Why can’t a landlord do the same? I have never heard boo from either of my neighbours, except once to find out if we knew anything about the car being broken into, and once about the first flood we had. Not even when we’ve seen parties on their deck at early hours of the morning. I don’t understand…

This little incidence kind of shut down my progress with the house cleaning for awhile. And so when my husband got home, the only thing I wanted to do was to sit and cuddle with him for a bit. It was actually nice because I haven’t felt this free from school work in so long to completely dedicate my attention to him, rather than only half-listening to him while I’m working.

We went to the gym, and I’m telling you, I didn’t even have my regular coffee before the gym, but I smashed every back record I have! My single arm dumbbell rows went up by 5 lbs a side, my t-bar row went up by 10 lbs (husband encouraged me), and my reverse lat pulldown went up by 5 lbs. I was loving it!! And I even found my side planks significantly easier than normal. Oh how happy I was! Although I was burning from the inside, hoping that was the fat burning off! 😉

I went to bed fairly satisfied last night, just somehow need to tackle this neighbour issue and maybe consider moving…

Week 3 Day 7

This morning I made it to the gym! I hardly ever workout in the morning (I have to be at work at 7:30) so this was a treat!

I finished catching up on my workouts for the week (such a good feeling). I’m completely caught up! Yahoo!

I was so exhausted by the end though. My legs are KILLING me! That’s what you get for doing leg exercises three days in a row…

After working out, my husband and I decided to go shopping in the evening. This meant a ton of walking. Although I was sore, it actually felt good to get out and stretch.

We spent a few hours at the mall, and naturally we got hungry. So we opted for Jungle Jim’s. Fortunately, they have a “slim” menu that I was able to pick from. I had “slim” taquitos (baked, low fat cheese and chicken) with a jungle salad that consists of so many different vegetables. As a slight indulgence, we ordered some boneless wings and I had a few of those. As long as it fits my macros, I am ok with doing this once in awhile!

We ended the day well, had a lot of fun, and looked forward to rest that night. I can hardly believe it’s the end of week 3.

Week 1 Day 3

According to today’s schedule, it was supposed to be a rest day. Our coach has given us the ok to do cardio or something like yoga on a rest day if we are restless. I’m used to working out 6 days a week, so I definitely went ahead and did some cardio. Because I knew that I wouldn’t be tired out from anything else, I decided to push myself with something I dislike: the stairclimber.

I managed to complete a hard 12 minutes of HIIT. I may not have liked it during the moment, but I felt so good about it after I was done. And as my husband finished working out, I was able to spend an ample amount of time stretching and working on my flexibility, something that is very important to me.

Today I had less stress than yesterday, and my meals were more timely. The only time I sensed too long of a stretch between eating was after work. I have a ton of grading to do (life of a teacher…) and so I decided to stay a little longer to get some done. I didn’t bring any extra meals with me and so I was tempted to eat those popsicles in my freezer in my room. But I managed to avoid it and waited until I got home.

The ironic part of this is that when I got home I made my fish (haddock), rice and slice of cheese. I also added a little mustard on this. My husband came home shortly after and was in a miserable state, feeling awful. He was very hungry, and unfortunately we were running out of his groceries (he has his own macros/plan) so fast food was the way we went. We ended up at Pizza Hut. And on our table was: cheese breadsticks, boneless wings, pizza, and cinnaparts. Oh that smell.

I wanted that food. It looked good. It smelled good. But in my head, I knew that wasn’t what I wanted. That food would not make me feel good. That food would not help me reach my goals. That food would definitely not help me in this competition, and so I sat, watching my husband eat that food. And guess what! I did it. I didn’t have a single bite, no matter how tempted I was!

The worst part is, the rest of that meal is sitting in our fridge. How incredibly easy and habitual is it to go to the fridge, pop open the tasty leftovers, and heat them up. Too easy. So the battle is not over yet, but I’ve already determined that I will not let food control me. I will not indulge. I have a plan. I have a goal. And that is where my focus is going to be.

I am currently finishing my bowl of frozen mango, frozen blueberries, and greek yogurt and then I shall be off to bed. Have a great night everyone.

Brain Breaks and Why They Are Important!

So as optimistic as I like to be, yesterday just did not turn out the way I thought it would. In fact, I was ready to throw in the towel, blow after blow. It seemed like so many negative items, so much negative news, so many changes to plans that weren’t beneficial no matter how I looked at. It was just all too much!

I ended up going for a drive; one of those drives that you sometimes wonder afterwards how you ever avoided accidents because your thoughts were a million miles away. I then went home and completely did not feel like doing anything. In fact, for the very few minutes I had, I walked my dogs, then sat on the bed in front of the fan. Naturally this was short-lived as I had to pick up my husband from work. 

My brain was just sunk. My blood pressure was guaranteed elevated, my positivity was on the downhill slope, my hope was crushed, my body paying the price. I felt miserable. I felt like this was it, that I’m already at my breaking point and the year hasn’t even begun. I began second-guessing myself, asking if this job really was for me, if I wasn’t as strong as other teachers, if maybe I’m not as strong as I thought I was. But then something happened.

After picking up my husband from work, I put myself mentally in a place where I was just spending time with him. I wasn’t thinking about work. I wasn’t thinking about how in the world our finances are going to balance. I wasn’t thinking about all the stresses that I carry on my back right now. It was just him and I and quality time together. It gave my brain a break!

See, I used to laugh at people when they told me to take brain breaks in school. I used to think I was invincible. I used to think I could push myself to the utmost limits and even beyond. And quite honestly, I did. I used to work two jobs while going to university full time, in fact one semester I even had to request my credit limit be elevated in order to do 6 courses instead of my normal 5. Most mornings, I’d get off work, and wait around for my morning class because there simply wasn’t enough time to even go home and get changed before class started. I spent crazy hours working at work, being in school, and doing schoolwork.

The craziest thing that was an eye-opener to me was when friends used to come over to see if there was any way they could help me with my work or at least help keep me awake. Some nights, I don’t even remember what I said or did. I don’t drink, never have. I don’t do drugs, never even touched them. But out of pure exhaustion, my body and brain would continue on as if I were awake, and yet I was not truly awake. Countless times my friends would tell me the next day about the conversations we had and would be completely confused when I replied that I had no recollection of that conversation. They would tell me that I was sitting in the chair, looking straight at them, having conversations that made complete sense, and yet the truth was that I wasn’t actually awake. Isn’t that scary? As you can probably guess, this is right before my body crashed, and crashed hard.

You see, my brain was so used to running non-stop that even when my consciousness would rest, my subconscious continued in the exact way my consciousness would have. Thankfully I had good friends so safety was never an issue. But imagine it had been. I NEVER gave my brain a break. Not even a tiny one. 

Just because of the student I am, I have high expectations of myself as far as quality of work and grades go. I always received good grades, even in my tired state. But I know it wasn’t good for me. Sitting for hours doing homework, then spending hours between my two jobs, then hours and hours of classes. Everything was back-to-back and there was no break. My poor brain, seriously.

As a teacher, I am much more conscience of the brain breaks I give my students. I know that if they don’t get a break, then the work is going to decline in quality. That’s just the way it is. They easily get off track, derail to other topics, and just can’t focus. But give them a 2-5 minute brain break, and all of a sudden they’re energetic and ready to roll again. That’s what a brain break does.

So I challenge you to watch yourself. Watch how long you are actually causing your brain to continue working. And if you’re pushing your hours, get up and have a brain break. Whether it’s a simple exercise, a simple stretch, a change of topic, a small conversation with a co-worker or friend, anything that gets your mind off of the work you’re doing right now. Got time for a small nap? A mindless game? Great! Your brain needs that shift.

Don’t do what I did. I’ve lived out the mistake for you. Take care of yourself. You only have one body, so get it right the first time! Help it to remain healthy and see the advances it makes in your own life. Brain breaks are important!

Well, It Looked Like A Good Idea…

Last night, arriving at the gym later than I wanted, being much more tired than was good, I knew the first thing I needed to do to warm-up was 10 minutes of kicking (roundhouse, high kicks, modified kicks, all kicks!). Excellent source of cardio and use of legs, though now I know to do it AFTER leg workout and maybe not so much before.

As I’m looking around, trying to figure out where I’m going to do this (new gym doesn’t have a punching bag), I notice a lady on a treadmill that is walking and kicking. I thought this idea was GENIUS. Then you don’t have to worry about jumping back and forth. Just step and kick with the other leg! Then by the time you put the kicking foot down, the other foot can just go up for the kick. No walking or jumping included!

So naturally, I go into the woman’s workout room to try this (no need to make a fool of myself in front of more people should something go wrong). I set the treadmill on a low speed, and begin. At first it was all adjustment of learning how fast to kick vs. how fast the treadmill was going. But it seemed AMAZING. More focus on the kicking, less focus on the extra foot movement.

It was kind of like this picture except I allowed my body to go back a little further, and had full extension kicks instead of just knee lifts.

I thought it went well, albeit I know I’m a little awkward when kicking. I really should get some more training with this. But it was after, when I went to start my squat warm-ups, that I realized an all-of-a-sudden strip of pain down my quad. Oh my goodness. I stopped, waited a minute and tried again. The pain kept pulling. So I stopped again. Waited another minute, tried again, and realized it was just getting worse.

I had to stop. Which is something I rarely do. The pain was not going away. Did I do it during my squat warm up? No idea. Hasn’t happened during a warm up before… Did I do it during my kicking? I’m thinking so. It’s something I don’t normally do. Could it be a result of hardly sleeping leading to very little recovery? Also a possibility. It’s really hard to say.

Naturally, I went and rolled, and rolled, and rolled. It hurt, it was painful, but it needed to be done. Then, I stretched, and stretched, and stretched. Again, it hurt, it was painful, but it needed to be done. Did the pain go away like I had hoped? Nope. In fact, it almost felt worse afterward, but nothing can help repair an injury like stretching can do. So instead of doing my leg workout, I ended up doing my back workout. Even though I was able to complete it, it still was modified since I was shifting most of my weight on my uninjured leg. Even though my lower body was shifted, I tried my best to centralize my upper body. You gotta do the best you can with what you got.

I couldn’t do the cardio I wanted, and even though I left the gym last night feeling defeated and upset, I made myself question the whole thing. I can’t push my body to destruction. It’s better to recover now than not be able to fully recover later. And missing one cardio session will not make me fat. My body needed recovery, and that’s what I had to do.

If you get an injury, don’t give up, but don’t push it to the max. Remember that some recovery (which does require minimal work) is what will help you in the long run. Listen to your body as it knows best (notice there is a difference between body and brain!!). And most of all, take recovery seriously. Your body cannot build, repair or produce the results you want if it does not get the down time to do it. You only get one body, so let’s treat them the best possible.

Let Yourself Recover!

I know I’ve written about sleep before, but this morning, I feel like I need to reinforce it. You see, from Sunday to Thursday, I’m pretty sure I was running on less than 20 hours of sleep TOTAL. It didn’t affect my work at all, I’ve become very good at running on overdrive. But it really hit me last night at the gym.

I started with my cardio (Ellyptical: 5 min. warm-up, 30 mins. at 70% MHR, 5 min. cooldown). Normally this is no problem for me, but I knew I was tired. The only thing is, I basically had to let my body take over and go through the motions on (mostly) its own because I closed my eyes for a second, and instantly knew that even though I was working out, I could fall asleep. My eyes closing was enough for my body to take a hint to go to sleep. This was NOT good.

I did successfully finish my cardio, but didn’t end up doing my weight training. I knew that waiting between sets would give my body a chance to fall asleep. So I rolled and stretched and came home.

I’m writing to you just after I officially have gotten up out of bed. Of course, I woke up a couple times during the night/morning, but any typical day I cannot fall back to sleep. It was almost 12:30 p.m. I cannot remember the last time I’ve gotten up this late!

If you can take any example, take this. I went from barely any sleep, ending up with an entirely sore, unrecovered, achy body that was ready to fall asleep anywhere, to an actual recovery sleep that took much longer than necessary due to the amount of rest I’ve missed, and now feel neither sore nor tired nor achy.

Sleep can do so much for you and yet sometimes it’s the one thing that gets put on the back burner. If you don’t sleep, your muscle gains are lost, your fat will not shed, you will not be capable to do what you wish. Take my advice and make sleep just as important as anything else. It needs to be a habituated routine for your health.