/Misses the jump, falls into the Lava, respawns at last save point.

[Silvergamma]

Howdy!

 

I posted to these forums a while back. I kind of lost my way, and am trying to regain some focus.

 

My play through so far:

 

I was a super active kid, and ski raced through high school and into college. At some point, I realized that I wasn't going to make it as a pro skier, and focused on my studies graduating with a couple of engineering degrees. After graduation, my boyfriend (now husband) and I moved from Colorado to Washington State.  It was a really good career move, but a number of factors stacked up against me regarding my health.

 

• I got hit with some pretty major seasonal depression up there. going from sunny Colorado, to 8-9 months of dark rain was tough.
• Related, I was homesick.
• I hated trying to do things outside in the rain.
• I was putting in long hours in my cube.
• I would typically skip breakfast and lunch, and make up for my low energy by drinking all the coffee, and raiding the secretary's candy bowl.
• I would get home in the evening, cranky, over caffinated, and hungry as hell.
• We would gorge on comfort food or go out to eat, and spend the rest of the evening watching movies and playing video games.

About 5 years ago we moved back home to Colorado. At the time we moved back I was 220lbs (I'm 5'10"), had high cholesterol for my age, felt like crap, and hated my body. A lot.

 

Just like there were a number of factors that hurt my health, there were a number of factors that got me motivated to start taking care of myself:

 

• My dad has always had high blood pressure, and there is an extensive history of heart disease on his side of the family.  He got put on beta blockers for his bp, and I saw how gnarly the side effect of those drugs were. I was already having some heart related issues, and realized I needed to make some changes.
• I read "Unbearable Lightness" by Portia de Rossi. While it was a story about her struggles with anorexia and bulimia, there were a lot of things in her experience that I could relate to, especially the self esteem parts.  While I have never had those kinds of eating disorders I did realize that my relationship with food wasn't a healthy one.
• I had a couple of major epiphanies:

1. We all get one meat ship. It's this awesome vessel that allows us to interact and explore the world. That's AWESOME. My body wasn't the enemy, we were in this together, and it was up to me to take as good care of my meat ship as Scotty took of the warp engines on the Enterprise.
2. Every choice is it's own event. Making one bad choice doesn't mean that the entire day is shot. Having a cookie doesn't mean that my diet is blown for the day, so why try. Seems minor, but I was definitely part of the "dammit, I'll start again tomorrow, pass me the rest of that Ben and Jerry's pint" club.

I put it all together, and made myself my own science project. I started tracking my food using My Fitness Pal, started the C25K, worked up to 10K, then to 8 miles. I documented everything, had charts, graphs and data. I dropped ~50 pounds, down to 170 lbs, and was feeling great... and then things started falling apart.

 

I sprained my ankle, and kept trying to run on it -> kept hurting (go figure), so I stopped running all together to "let it heal."  That was about 2 years ago and I haven't really picked running back up seriously since. At this point I don't know if my ankle is OK and I'm psyching myself out, or if it's actually still janky and I should get it looked at again.

 

About the same time I hurt my ankle, I started studying to take the professional engineering licensing exam.  That was an insanely stressful time.  I would work all day, come home, eat dinner, and study all evening.  Definitely feel back into the comfort food routine, and lots of scotch.

 

Between those two things I have put back on about 15 pounds.  It's not as big of a back slide as some folks experience, but it is indicative of a systemic pattern of taking care of myself when it's easy to do so, and forgoing self care when things pile up.

 

So here I am. Work is shaping up to be crazy this summer. I need to start putting some plans in place now, so that I have strategies to fall back on.  I need to find some physical activity that I enjoy and can stick with.  I'm not sure running is my jam at this point.  I'm looking into a boxing gym near my office, and want to get back into Olympic style lifting like I used to do for ski training.  I went vegetarian about a year ago, and want to stick with that. I need to work on preparing more meals at home and being more diligent about making breakfast and lunch instead of just raiding the snack drawer at work.

 

Not my first time at this rodeo, won't be my last, but hopefully I can be more consistent moving forward.

[Jett]

Hey there, Silver.

 

Your story up to your sprained ankle is pretty inspiring! I like your analogy of treating your body like Scotty took care of the Enterprise's engines. The Enterprise could outfly every ship in the Federation in large part because Scotty knew precisely how long he could overclock her, and exectly how to keep her in absolutely perfect shape. I think we could all do with a little spitfire Scottish man in the backs of our heads, going "SHE CANNAE TAKE NO MORE, CAPTAIN" when we foolishly start trying to push our bodies too far.

 

Anyway, glad to have you back. I feel you on the stress. I just got off 2 weeks of crunch time in my programming job, and it played merry hell with my hormone balance and my eating and exercise habits. Only 2 weeks wasn't too bad, but it's forcing me to look at my priorities. If things got more stressful for a longer period of time, I know I would fall apart within a few months.

 

It's really smart of you to start planning now, since you know the crazy stress is coming again. Try to find a set schedule of good habits you can stick to comfortably, and then make a promise to yourself to stay with it, even when tempted deviate from it because of work. If you can, maybe rope your husband into giving you a gentle rebuke when you start to put your health last again? Having someone close to you who can notice when you start backsliding into old habits can be really helpful. Meal prep is definitely a great idea, something I'm also trying to incorporate more of. If your meals for the week are already done on the weekend, then your excuses for going out for comfort food are reduced. If you can, meal prep for all meals the weekend before any week you know is going to be super stressful. Then you'll have one less thing to worry about, and grabbing your healthy meal on the go is a no-brainer.

 

Good luck!

[Silvergamma]

Thanks for the kind words! I really was kicking butt, and I know I can again.  I think I understand the long term maintenance traps better than I did the first go around. Other than the ankle, I was also starting to get bored running the same routes over and over, so creating more variety in my physical activity is going to be key this summer.

 

Meal prep is a big thing, for sure. While I've gone veggie, my husband hasn't, so we are working through figuring out good multi diet meals that still enable us to eat together. I'm also going to be traveling a lot, so planning ahead with breakfasts and lunches to take with (we drive to our sites) will be key.

[Evicious]

Hey, Silvergamma! I know exactly where you're at (only I've got 5Lbs extra to your 15 to lose). I'm currently in a really stressful time in my own job, with lots of last-minute schedule changes, and exceedingly long hours (and also no weekends.... sigh). I definitely second the meal prepping - I have a feeling that's going to be what really helps me settle back down into a healthy lifestyle in spite of the crazy work situation. I've also been on Pinterest a lot lately, looking for a variety of quick (15-30 min) workouts to keep me on track and motivated (I also get bored easily). 

 

Another suggestion I have for you is to remember that 'Something is Always Better than Nothing'. When the stress really starts piling on and the deadlines are looming (or passed, gods forbid!), every 1 minute of whatever you manage is still better than doing nothing. 

 

Best of luck to you!

[Silvergamma]

"Something is better than nothing" might be my new motto for the short term

[Noname123]

 

I put it all together, and made myself my own science project. I started tracking my food using My Fitness Pal, started the C25K, worked up to 10K, then to 8 miles. I documented everything, had charts, graphs and data. I dropped ~50 pounds, down to 170 lbs, and was feeling great... and then things started falling apart.

 

I love this. This is exactly how I'm viewing anything fitness related- a science project, just using my body as the actual experiment