Sometimes you gotta step back. Sometimes you're making excuses for yourself. And sometimes, when it seems that your whole life has been either easy victories or excuses, and you started working hard for a change, it's tough to sort out which is which. That's a battle I fight regularly.
I don't want to be an excuse maker, and I never wanted to be, I just can't deal with people's crap! Everyone has an opinion and no matter what I do, rarely is everyone in agreement about how right or wrong I am. Go figure! I had real trouble with this when I was a kid; in high school it seemed like every teacher expected me to treat their class as the most important. Despite good advice from my father, I still didn't get it. I had to figure out how to make my own choices the best I could, and live with them. What didn't factor in back in the day was that often I made excuses for my poor choices, and got away with it for too long. It's a tough row to hoe but it's mine, I guess.
For example, I've been planning a 15k rowing experience and life is just too big for me to do it right now. I couldn't do it last Tuesday when I had planned to, so the following Thursday I sat down to row and get it over with. I was all set up to go, but my mind wasn't in it at all. I had so many issues to deal with... money, work, family, and more. All pressing stuff. I hadn't slept well in days, and the ALCC Camden Community Picnic, which I help organize, was the coming Saturday. Stress must have been oozing from my pores. After twelve minutes my butt began hurting. My arms still ached from what seemed like ten days' worth of arm-working WODs, and around the fifteen minute mark I realized that I had quit several minutes earlier. I ended up pressing on and rowing for about 18 minutes total, which still beats my last longest time by two or three minutes, and my longest distance by hundreds of meters. Felt like a failure, though. My attitude just wasn't good to start with. Perspective isn't always easy to hold on to.
I was so afraid to tell anyone--John, Cheryl, anyone. Yet I felt like it was my choice. I really wanted (and want!) to do the row. It's kinda exciting! I told John (my CrossFit trainer) and tried not to make a big deal out of it. He didn't kill me. It was his suggestion, not an order, and he's in no position to order me around anyway. I just want to be good and do good, and never be wrong. Can't do it. Can't be perfect. Gotta live with it.
I'm doing the Copper Wire run in early October, so I don't want to go too deep into September before I set myself to the 15k row again. I do need a free day, where I don't have piles of things to set aside. I'll have them soon enough, I just need to be patient. This challenging time will pass, as have all the others. God will get me through.
After last week I was mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted. Tuesday I didn't exercise. I felt I needed a break. I still do. Thursday I'm committed to doing very little as well. I have so much to do already, but who knows? I'm sick of cramming so much into a day that my mind spins. Too much of that, for whatever reason, and I get squirrely and head toward places I can't go anymore.
I still have to plan out my new food blocking scheme--or rather, how I'm gonna make it work on a daily basis--and I haven't done it yet. I have to figure out how to make 17 blocks of protein, 9 blocks of carbs, and about 40 blocks of fat into an eating plan. I know basically how to do it, and I've been stumbling through it for a few days now, but with no tracking and no planning it's an exercise in paleo eating. I have to give myself room to move here, I guess.
Over the weekend, I ate like crap for a good 24 hours after the community picnic and when I weighed myself on Tuesday, I was ten pounds heavier than the previous week. No doubt it's water weight held because of the abundance of salt and garbage carbs I consumed. I don't regret some of it, but as time passed I got sick of my behavior and the crap food started to taste bad. I don't know when I'll finally learn that there's no going back... I can still eat anything I want, but anything close to a binge won't be worth it.
Depending on my mood, my water weight is either a humorous thing or an annoyance. I'll be shedding it for days. This weekend we're going to The Fair (as they call it) and I'm gonna eat some crap there, too, just not as much. Within the following week is my anniversary, and around then we're going out to eat. In between it's all paleo as I learn how to make the new blocking work. Afterward it's big-push time. I've got weight to lose and muscle to build.
I don't understand everything but then again, I have yet to fully adopt the new eating. And as I've advised so many others lately, one must try something like that for a good two or three weeks straight (at least!) before you can begin to judge whether or not something's working, and another few weeks to see the benefits more fully unfold. I'm reading books and asking questions, changing my diet, working out, and putting one foot in front of the other. Gotta get through this, so I press on...
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