Slippin' and Slowin' Down

[Leego]

Lately, I've been getting lazy with counting my calories, which is bad, for me. Counting calories every time I eat helps me keep the amount of food that I'm eating every day in perspective, but it's also a pain in the ass, sometimes. The MyFitnessPal app on my phone doesn't always cooperate like I want it to, and I can't always scan everything, so I end up manually typing everything in, which is tedious as all heck. Plus, on my phone, it doesn't remember the foods that i enter in, so I have to do it all over again every time. DX

 

Also, there are the "mystery" calories, as I call them: Calories that i can't count because they come from foods that someone else prepared, so I have no idea what's in them, or how much of it I should be eating. As a result, I usually eat less at dinner time, and if I'm still hungry a few hours after dinner, or find that I haven't even broke the 1,500 calorie mark yet for the calories that I COULD count, I'll eat a little something extra.

 

Lately, I've kind of stopped giving much care about counting calories. It seems hard enough just to focus on sleeping right and walking, and I'm already am pretty proud of myself for having made it this far with strength training as it is, and I want to continue it, and it will be easier to control my diet when I can more easily control my life what and when I eat, as well as have an easier time keeping myself busy, which will be when I go back to college.

 

I tend to eat when I'm bored and idle, and am just standing around in the kitchen or sitting in my mom's workplace. When I had a dorm room, I rarely had any food in my room, as I mostly ate at the cafeteria, and I could always find something to do, so avoiding eating just because I feel like it and can while at home has taken a fair bit of will on my part.

 

I've also been slacking off at the gym, but that's not entirely my fault. I've been feeling a bit drained lately, and I don't know if it's because of lack of rest (I've been making sure I get at least 7 hours of sleep regularly), me not eating right lately, or my body fighting off some sickness that I got (which I can't tell because I haven't felt really sick lately). I will say that, I did try tobacco recently and accidentally swallowed the juice. It made me feel lightheaded, then dizzy, then a little nauseous and lightheaded, and then I slept it off, or so I thought. Safe to say, I'm never chewing tobacco again. Just the thought of the taste of it makes me feel a little grossed out.

 

The last time I went to the gym, I felt tired, unfocused, and not really prepared or excited to do squats. I still hit all of my workouts, but afterwards, I didn't feel psyched, and I didn't feel like doing much else: Not even walking/running intervals. I didn't do warrior lunges (which I kind of hate), kettleball swings (which I'm not sure if I'm doing right, I need to check), nor jumpin' jacks (which I question the usefulness of with only 1 set of 30).

 

I'm not saying everything is going wrong, I believe I am at least still on track with my weightlifting goals, if nothing else. I just feel like I'm slipping out of my routine, and I'm most concerned about losing weight for appearance purposes, and it's kind of hard to maintain a proper, consistent diet at home sometimes.

 

Oh, also, I'm feeling a bit of a soreness in my upper, middle back, and I keep getting this sensation like a bug is biting the top of my shoulder. Now being out in the country, the shoulder thing really could just be a bug bite, and my back is most likely sore from my workouts, but I tend to get a bit paranoid whenever any soreness doesn't feel like a sort of burning soreness.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

You might want to see a doctor, if it's not any one thing you can pin down there could be some underlying cause.  If counting calories has gotten tedious, try some of the other diet options we talk about around here. Steve's  most recent blog post addresses that very thing. http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2015/06/18/your-most-popular-diet-questions-answered/#more-26379

[Leego]

Well, I want to see a doctor, but I have no health insurance, and right now, I have no money to get health insurance with, or to pay to see a doctor with. I would get a job, but where I am at, no one will hire me. I'm a "dependent", so "technically" my parents are supposed to get health insurance for me, but for some reason, they're not in a hurry or effort to get it for me, and I'm not sure if they can. Not being able to see a doctor anytime soon is part of the reason I've been trying to improve my own health recently, since I'm not going to be getting any medical help anytime soon in my life. I can try to get help by joining this group in my college for low-income and minority students, but I ain't got my hopes up for them to let me join. It's almost enough to make me want to just drop out of college, get a job, and get myself situated, and THEN finish college.

 

Well, today, I only got about 5 hours of sleep. Last night, I went to sleep at about 10:40 PM, and I found myself awake at 3:30 PM, and unable to go back to sleep. So I rolled around and hoped to go back to sleep, but then decided to just get breakfast, skip gym and do body weight exercises later today, and try to go back to sleep at about 6:00 AM or 7:30 AM. But THEN, my baby sister got up, mom had to go to work, and my dad's still asleep. I tried to take a nap before she left, but got woke up about 15 minutes later. So NOW, I've got to babysit my baby sister until dad wakes up, by the time I can go out and do exercises, it's either going to be extremely hot, or extremely stormy, most likely watch my baby sister again while my dad takes care of some house work, all while either trying to stay up until 10:30 ~ 11:00 PM (and it's the weekend, so my family's going to be up REALLY late), or trying to just squeeze in a nap at some point, forget exercising today, and just sleep for as long as I can so that I stay awake until everyone goes asleep, which will put me at 2:00 - 3:00 AM again, which doesn't work during the week because I have to be up no later than 7:00 AM to catch a ride to the gym with my mom. Goddamn, I need my driver's license.

 

I don't mean to rant, and I love my family, but it's a bit stressful trying to stay on track with them, and I've already been having a hard time sticking to a routine lately, and this is just one of those days where I feel like giving up and going back to being a night owl until I go back to college, but if I give up now, I most likely won't start back my routine when I go back to college, I will just be stuck in a rut, and no one will care but me.

 

Also, I've felt like I've had just the worst shin splint ever, lately, and it won't go away.

[Leego]

And just like that, nobody cares. Phew! At least I still care! I will only be coming back here for advice about specific things I absolutely cannot find via searching..

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Sorry I missed your post before this one. It stinks you're stuck in the situation you're in. It's amazing you're making all the progress you are in spite of your difficulties.

[Leego]

To be honest, I was expecting to get nagged, and was kind of hoping for it. I made that post while I was really frustrated, but I'm not now.

 

And here's the part that I hate where I kind of start to feel like I'm being an attention whore. To be honest, I guess I'm kind of sensitive, and I'm used to people (other than my family) ignoring me when I try to contact them or connect with them, or when I'm talking to them about myself or something personal, or even business related, so I've kind of gotten myself to the point where I expect people to say things to me, and if they don't say anything to me when I expect them to, I easily get offended, and I'm beginning to get tired of being nice about it.

 

I know it's not personal, most of the time. At least not on here and most other forums. Sometimes people really just don't know what to say, or expect someone else to say something, or are just busy.To be honest, I have gotten much more help, response, and consideration here in the Nerd Fitness community than I do in most groups, communities, classes and teams in college and when looking for work, which makes me glad that I switched to this instead of BodyBuidling.com, so I'm thankful for that.

 

I will try to be more active on the forums again. Afterall, I have to get to know people and let them know me. It's worth noting that I still do care enough about myself to keep going. I have not stopped.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

That's great self awareness. I have found this to be the nicest place on the internet.

[Leego]

You know, I just noticed that you post a lot in these forums, and that your title is "the Encourager". That's really nice.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Thanks, I really enjoy helping people see their potential inside. Professionally I am a Chaplain, and I like to tell people that my job is that I get to tell people how awesome they are.  My model is I remember Mr. Rogers telling me that he liked me just the way I am. In a way, that's what I do for others, and that's my career. I'm living the dream, so I'm happy to spread encouragement and cheer.

[Footsore Rambler]

I have that thing where I feel like I'm getting ignored, too, and it is frustrating.  But it's very, for lack of a better word, empowering to take that feeling and scrutinize it the way you are doing, rather than just letting it toss you around.  So nice work!

 

I think online communication lends itself to that feeling -- if I read something you write, but don't really have a substantive or coherent response, I can't just give you a sympathetic look or pat you on the shoulder or roll my eyes like I might IRL. 

[Leego]

Ah, so you know the feeling! Thank you!

 

I've gotten to the point where I question whether or not if I should show sympathy or concern for others in real life, since most of the time I usually try to, people tend to respond with a cold shoulder or something. Maybe it's just my perception. Maybe it has something to do with my first impression or how I look or speak that makes me come off as insincere or creepy.

 

I can honestly say that I don't get the same response here on the forums. Probably for the reasons you just mentioned, with the added anonymous status, and the added safety and lack of body language due to being behind a computer screen.