Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Finding Footing with the Wrong Foot First.

Some days just start off on the wrong foot. We all have them. I, admittedly, don't have too many of them. That's not due to living a charmed life - it's more due to spending a few minutes every morning thinking positive over a cup of tea. But some days just start on the wrong foot to begin with.

This morning's 'bad day' started around 10:30pm. I felt My Sailor slip into peaceful dream beside me while I was still trying to warm up my frozen feet. Hey - I'm a woman - which means my feet are drop 10 degrees below a reasonable body tempurature as soon as I slip into bed.

I did my best to quiet my mind and drift off into dreamland myself. 30 minutes passed... no luck. I got up, got a drink of water, and popped some Melatonin. I went back to bed. Then I went back to sleep.

3 hours later, I got up to go to the bathroom. Then back to bed. Half an hour later, back up to the bathroom. Shark week has been kind of brutal lately. The coppery scent of iron seems to be seeping through my skin this week. I don't have Endo flare ups often, but last night I blame largely on that. That little ball of barbed wire in my belly felt the need to slowly wrap just a little bit tighter. Aching muscles left over from Monday's heavy lifting linger still, and the chronic annoyance of pain just makes them want to wrap a bit tighter and tighter.

I'm sure a bit of it is stress related. Good stress (it seems like this 2nd floor addition to the house is going to be spectacular and affordable, and 2 nibbles on my resume are both continuing, so it's nice to have some doors opening, and, of course, setting up to make headway on the adoption process) and bad stress (news that a good friend's special needs daughter seems to be reaching the end of what medicine can offer for her degenerative neuro disorder, a little stress about what to do with the family during the upcoming holidays, etc.) is still all stress.

After seeing My Sailor out to door around 5am, I collapsed back on the couch with the phone off. I managed to catch a few more hours of sleep, but overslept and missed my appointment with Trainer Guy.
It's days like these when I know no one in their right mind would blame me if I called it quits on the gym today.
Post Strongman, Pre Tie Breaker.

No one, that is, but me. I could choose to spend the day behind my desk wondering if I could have made it through my training session, secretly knowing I can and have in worse scenerios.

Luckily,Trainer Guy is able to work me in later in his day. And I Am Going.  That decision was monumental enough to deserve capital letters.

And that's where my day started looking up!

Once that decision was made, the rest of the day instantly got easier. A handful of ibuprohen, some St John's Wart, Fish Oil, and Midol later, I'm feeling better and ready to tackle the day. I pulled up an Underground Wellness Podcast to play while I worked. As luck would have it, it wasn't about getting your body right. It was about getting your head and heart right.

I already know I'm getting my body in the right place. I'll admit, I snuck onto the scale today, expecting to be up a good 5-8lbs (the usual Shark Week water retention). Instead, the scale seems to be consistantly going down! While I don't base my feelings for the day on a number on a scale anymore, it's a nice confirmation today that I'm doing all the right things - and it's paying off.

I'm not sure if I can really attribute the slow loss to going Paleo this month (of which I'm about 90-95% faithful to), or if I'm reaching that critical muscle mass point where the muscle munching away on the body fat for fuel, but it's nice to see the change. Sweaters that were tight last fall are comfortably baggy now. Tank tops that were tight a month ago no longer feel snug.

See, I get really disappointed when I see a lot of my Facebook friends start to dread the rest of a day when it starts off poorly. What if, instead of resigning myself to having a bad day entirely, I decide to embrace the 'wins' of the day (like having a job that's in demand that I can do from home, having a Trainer who's willing to make time for me when I flub up, having a couple of awesome furkids to drive me nuts, and a bright - thought challenging- future ahead of me) instead of count the things that are wrong with today?

Somedays, ya just gotta grab your self by the bootstraps, put in your big girl panties, and choose something better.
Post Tie-breaker

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