Lost optimism, no drive. Running on a constant empty.

[Spikings]

Hi everyone - so the title pretty much sums it up, but I'll go into more detail here.

 

I've lost a lot of drive to do better in life recently, or sometimes to be positive at all - this revolves around a lot of things aside from exercise and health, but since this is a fitness forum I'd rather keep it to those two things. Long story short, I've gone from being marginally fit and healthy (I was no force of nature but fine), to no energy. Food makes me happy. Drinking also makes me happy. The side effects to this is that my health has gone down the drain, and so has my mood the last few months. I also feel so damn tired by 7pm in the evening, whereas before I could be up and about until 12am. I eat cheese and crackers like they're going out of fashion. I leave things until last minute. I don't care about striving to do better in life. A lot of these things probably seem by-the-by, but this is extremely out of character for me.

 

As it stands, I don't know how to get out of this funk, except for just exercising... and I am in no way enthusiastic about this (stick in the mud, I know). I know the 4-week challenge is coming up in three days, so I'll start there. I doubt I'll be happy with it, but I guess if I get my body moving then that'll be a start. But right now, I have no enthusiasm for this or much else. All I can learn from this fallback is not to think too much about the how's or why's, but just to knuckle down and put in the work, whether I enjoy it or not. With any luck after a few weeks, I'll notice a difference, and maybe I'll grow to welcome some positivity in my life again that doesn't revolve around consuming crap.

 

So yup, fingers crossed. I just need someone to pull me out of this mud I'm stuck in.

 

[Scatterbunn]

Good luck on your respawn, The challenges are a good place to start, just make sure you pick goals you know you can meet to help build confidence for your next challenge.

I hope i'm not over stepping, but have you been to see a doctor? There are a lot of medical conditions/deficiencies that can lead to the way you are feeling, especially if it had a fairly "sudden" onset and you were doing well before.

 

Diet and exercise can definitely affect mood/motivation, but a lot of times its really hard to take that first step.

[Salinger]

I feel similar to you, i have no energy, i sleep a lot, its a bad cycle because i cant even do the things i know will help me - like eating clean and exercising! Ill be following along, hope things improve for you soon x

[Spikings]

Thanks guys, really appreciate the replies.

 

@Scatterbunn : If you're interested in the goals I've picked for the challenge, take a look here - I've kept them fairly simple and took a few from the main thread template just to make sure. It's definitely not going to be easy, but at least making an active/aware change in my life might help. I haven't seen a doctor no, there's nothing I can think of that's been a trigger for the change in the last few months really - I know that I can feel very socially isolated from time to time as I don't work in a city, all my freinds are about an hour away and I live by myself. So apart from social networking, face-to-face chatting can be limited sometimes, which as you can imagine sucks!

 

@Salinger: I'm sorry you're feeling the same way as me right now in life, it's not pleasant and it's definitely not wanted. >_< I can only suggest doing what I'm doing and make small changes in your life that don't seem overwhelming. The challenges I picked for the next 30 days were things I could do a year ago out of daily habit, but now it's a struggle. In the mean time, be kind to yourself and I hope things change for the better for you soon x

[Sahaja]

My teacher once told our class about the phrase "fake it till ya make it".  Most cliche phrases like that are a part of our culture for one reason.  They're true, at least in some part.  It's not as simple as smiling makes you happy, but if you do good things that you enjoyed when you weren't in a funk, the funk seems a little less dark.  So in a little bit you do it again, or try something else you liked when you were happier.  Gradually the crap falls away.

 

If you stay focused on the bad things you do to yourself you get stuck only thinking about crap.  To break that spiral do something positive, even if you have to fake your way through it the first couple times.

 

[Minna]

I know where you're coming from, Spikings. Been there/am there myself. It is SO HARD to want to improve things when you're stuck at the bottom of the well with no oomph to get out of it. Depression may be at work, so keep an open mind about that - it's an enormous spectrum of symptoms and circumstances and could be entirely due to shifting brain chemistry.

 

Do keep in touch and if you're in a mood to chat about anything at all, I'll be here!