Soldiering On...

It is pretty common to see me post about my workouts, my plans, and random pics of my dogs on FB or Twitter. I generally keep it pretty light and tend to post things more frequently when I am happy versus when I am miserable/angry/[insert negative emotion here].

Same is true with this blog. I tend to write more frequently when I am in good moods versus bad moods. I am sure part of that is because I never want to have my setbacks or problems viewed as failures but another reason is when I am not feeling great I don’t really want to do anything, blogging included. So those down days may end up being overlooked but trust me, usually, it’s not because I am hiding.

Yesterday wasn’t a very good day. I woke up after four terrible hours of sleep, extremely dehydrated from the night before, and all I wanted to do was to be a hermit. Because my fridge was pretty baron (big fail on my part) my meals/snacks up until dinner time consisted of; two small Yukon gold potatoes, multi-grain tortilla chips and a mini bagel.  No fruits, no veggies, very little fiber. Just starchy carbs and a smidge of fat. Yeah, the foods were easy on my stomach but by the end of the day I was craving some vitamins. My body was literally begging me for some vegetables. It was pretty bad.

Thankfully, even though I wanted to stay on the couch all day and do nothing, I was still able to summon the mental strength to put together a meal plan for the week and then the physical fortitude to stand up and prepare all of it.  I don’t know how I won that battle but I am so glad I did. And even though I didn’t make it to hot yoga (not wise while dehydrated) or the gym or even for a long walk (rain all day) and even though I felt more mentally drained than I had in a very long time (thank you lack of sleep) I still celebrated the fact that I was able to set myself up for success this week by prepping all the meals. To me, one missed workout is insignificant but one week of eating out or eating tons of processed crap is a slippery slope and I do not want to go down that path if I can avoid it.

So, even though most of yesterday may not have went as I originally planned I have to be happy with the things I did do.

I guess my point is this- every day is not going to be ‘perfect’. Rarely do I have days/weeks that happen exactly to schedule. It’s called life. We all have to be able to adapt to the things we cannot predict. I still work on trying to not have a defeatist attitude when I miss out on workouts or I don’t make the best food choices. It happens. But I know I shouldn’t beat myself up too much and instead take that energy and use it to make a better plan for the next day or the next meal or the next few hours. 

Spending half the day in a haze yesterday could have sent me to the ‘screw it all’ place where I would normally just throw my hands up in the air and not care about food, exercise (or movement of any form) or plans and call the whole thing a wash. But that would be stupid wouldn’t it? And probably a bit over dramatic, too. Instead I looked at the time and what I needed/wanted to get done and set a reasonable to-do list for the few hours that remained. That list was; make a healthy and hearty dinner (loaded with veggies, of course), food prep for the week, and then relax watching the Emmy’s (my guilty pleasure is award shows) before an early night’s sleep.

And that is exactly what I did.

And yes, it was really hard to force myself off that couch.

And yes, I was tired and mopey the entire time I was in the kitchen.

But man, let me just tell you how good it felt relaxing afterwards knowing that was one thing I did not have to be concerned about for the rest of the week. I slept great last night and today was so much less stressful not having to wonder what I would be eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now I am off for a run and then home to eat some chickpea and asparagus casserole I made ahead last night.

See, it is totally possible to turn a shitty day into a great (or at least productive) one.