I am in a bit of a recovery period. I had thought by now I would be well into my plan of "100 days of H-E-*-*," plan to go extreme into diet and exercise. Unfortunately, I was sidelined by a little thing called a kidney stone. Instead of increasing my time spent working out and intensifying my efforts to eat correctly, I had to back off. Way off. Exercise? I was told to take it easy. Diet? Believe me, when you feel the way I felt, fixing food is an effort. You eat whatever you can, that which is easy. And usually easy just isn't that good for you.
But I'm starting to make my way back. Today I did 50 good minutes on the elliptical. As a reference, usually I do 60 minutes a day, and my all-time high is 88. But 60 is what I like to do, as it does not leave me depleted and I can even return to work out on weights later in the day.
There are several times when my workouts have been interrupted, usually due to travel. This is the first time, and hopefully the last, that it was interrupted by a physical ailment. So instead of blogging about the 100 days, or fish oil pills (that'll come, I promise), I instead will take advantage of this unique opportunity about the psychological effort required to start up again.
I've said this time and time again, that starting (or re-starting) is so much more difficult than just continuing with a program. I know it's sounded strange to some when I'll say the 30 minutes I did on a start up day were so much more difficult than the 80 minutes I might have done last month, but it's true. So I hope what I might take from this is to never discontinue my efforts. Usually travel is what causes an interruption, but I now believe I must make accomodations to continue my efforts. Starting up is a bear!
But because I've had to stop and start again so many times, I do have extreme confidence that I will be succcessful in my endeavors. Experience leads to confidence. Confidence leads to success. Simple enough. But here's the caveot: Experience is the sum of both our successes and our failures. Experience is learning what's working, what's not, dealing with our failures, and pushing on through. Nobody likes to fail. But how you deal with failure ultimately will dictate your future. Take your ball and go home? Well, good luck having any success with that attitude. Learn what adjustments you have to make to turn failures into successes. That's the winning plan.
Finally, you have to be selfish when dealing with your own health. You have to be. Few like to consider themselves selfish in any area, but in this arena you must grant yourself that. You have to give yourself the time and the resources to be successful, whatever they may be. Some may be extravagances, some might not work, but you can not deem yourself too selfish to not even give it a try. Your health is the one thing you have to be selfish about. Here's the reason why. Without it, you can do very little of the things in life you want to do, and that may include many unselfish things you want to do or have to do for others. So if you consider yourself an unselfish person, then back that up by being selfish about your health.
