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| Beautiful double rainbow as Hubby and I went for our evening walk |
This week has been full of frustrations. A lot of them, in nearly every aspect of my life. But as I always do, I persevered and things got better by the end of the week. Probably helped that I finally got several nights of good sleep, once that happened, everything else seemed to click into place.
Sleep is important. Never underestimate the importance of a good night's sleep. Once you lose that, life becomes a struggle. That is one of the things I have learned on weight loss journey
As I've said before, I'm a slow learner when it comes to my weight loss. Which is why it took me 6 years to get a hundred pounds off. And would be why I have gained thirty pounds back. I just don't seem to learn from my past experiences.
I say this honestly, not as a complaint or a whine. I'm just slow to learn new, better, healthier habits. And if I do manage to pick up a good habit here and there, I'm quick to toss it aside in place of an old, bad habit.
A good example is emotional eating or eating for comfort. Both of which I have done this week. Wednesday it was emotional eating due to stress at work. I was tired from lack of sleep and then I let some situations at work get the better of me and immediately turned to my old habit of emotional eating. Food makes me feel better, but only while I'm eating it. Once the food is gone, I feel guilty for eating and the guilt makes me feel bad, so I turn to food to make me feel better. This is what I mean about being a slow learner. Past experience has taught me that emotional eating makes the situation worse, not better. Yet I still do it. A lot.
Wednesday I put in an 11 hour day at work. Tired and exhausted, I went home and basically vegged out until bedtime, but then I was up before the alarm the next morning and was at Cross Fit at 6 am with Hubby. Looking back, I'm not sure doing Cross Fit was such a great idea. I needed the exercise, the release, the activity... but trying to learn something new when I'm exhausted, stressed, and already down on myself, was not a good idea.
Thursday was quit a bit of lifting, which is still very new to me. It's not something I have ever done in my life and there are a lot of movements involved. Once you learn the proper techniques, it's very fluid movements, done without thinking. As a lifting newbie, I'm forever trying to remember the proper form and technique. Just lifting the bar from the ground to my knees is mentally challenging... squat, butt out, chest up, shoulders pinched, lift, elbows... locked, tight... or ? See, two days later and I've already forgotten! Then moving the bar from hips to shoulders, to over head... even more movements and techniques to remember.
At one point, I had the bar at my knees, trying to remember to keep my butt out, chest up and shoulders pinched while Coach Kyle stood in front of me to watch my technique. I froze. He said something about continuing and I told him, "nope, I'm just going to stay in this position..." I honestly couldn't remember what I was supposed to do next.
By the end of the skill portion of the class, I was feeling frustrated, tired, and clumsy.... but determined to finish out the class by doing the Workout of the Day, which Coach Kyle came up with a scaled down version for me. I persevered. By the end of the workout I did 60 lifts with the 15 pound bar and 5 pound weights (25 pounds total). I thought several times about just quitting. I may be a slow learner, but I am not a quitter. I kept at it. I completed the workout.
All the emotions, lack of sleep, frustration at trying to learn this totally alien (for me) workout, and exhaustion from the workout caught up to me once I was in the car on the way home. Which is when I realized just how tired I was. At that point, I really should have gone home, showered, and crawled back into bed. I didn't. I showered and went to work.
By the time I got to work I was not only tired, but I was sore. I may have overdone it with all the lifting because my back started hurt. I did some major comfort eating because of the pain, which caused guilt feelings, which lead to emotional eating. Nope, hadn't learned a thing from the day before.
Thursday night, my back hurt so bad from lifting and then sitting all day at work (walking and standing, I noticed, didn't hurt), that I was nearly in tears. I took some ibuprofen PM and decided to lay down on the bed for a bit to see if that helped my back. I was asleep by 7:15.
Thursday night I slept for nearly 10 hours. Friday morning, I had a little back pain, but nothing compared to Thursday night and I felt energized. I had wanted to go for a run, but I didn't want to risk tweaking my back, so I just headed off to work. Friday was a good day because I was refreshed, not in pain, and focused. Still ate a bit more than I should have, but I wasn't emotional eating or eating for comfort. Progress.
I feel like I still have so much to learn about myself. I need to learn to deal with the emotional eating/comfort eating without food. I need to learn to listen to my body, so when I'm tired I sleep, when I'm sore, I rest.
It is frustrating that after 11 years, I still haven't learned to deal with situations without food.
The one thing I have learned is that I can't just give up. I will continue to persevere.
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