Fair warning, this could be a scattered and emotional post. Stay with me I promise there is a message in here somewhere.
Today I start a new way of eating and tomorrow I start working out again. I guess none of this is really new just going back to it after a derailment. A year ago I was eating healthy and working out. Some days I would do an hour of cardio in the morning and then and hour of weightlifting in the evening. I was putting everything I ate in the my fitness pal app and had my macronutrients calculated for where I was at personally. It didn’t feel obsessive, it felt good and I had energy. Life decided there was another plan for me.
In April of last year I urged my mom to go to the doctor for what I thought could be pneumonia. She finally went and they hospitalized her. After many tests and doctors we found out that she had lung cancer. For awhile I continued to go to the gym as an outlet. It got harder and harder to workout and eat right. I am an only child and very close to my parents so there was no way that I was going to not be at every doctors appointment plus my dad needed the help. A lot of times after a doctor’s appointment we would go eat and as hard as I wanted to try to be healthy, eating out is challenging. Everything went quick and by the middle of June she was gone. It was so hard and still is.
I thought I was dealing with my emotions fairly well but in November my mother-in-law fell ill and once again I found myself trying to be strong for my husband and his family but it seemed that not only was I dealing with the emotion of my mother-in-laws imminent death but also having all of the recent emotion of losing my mom coming back to the surface. So by the middle of November my mother-in-law was gone. Wow, by this time working out and eating right had been put on the bottom of my list. I was just trying to survive emotionally. I still needed to be a wife, a mother, a friend and an only daughter to a dad that had been married two weeks out of high school and had celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary a few weeks before my moms death. It happens right? People die, the world still turns, we grieve and then move on. We think we have moved on and then our bodies sometimes say, nope, you really haven’t dealt with this like you think.
I have been dealing with random pain, illness and muscle issues for about a year and a half. It started to get pretty bad about 6 months ago and I started searching for answers. Through lots of doctors appointments and tests the conclusion is that I have far too much anxiety and stress. The recommendation? Meditation and mindfulness.
I have to admit that I really thought; are you crazy? That’s it? No way, I have been so sick. Well I started having massage for pain. I have started back at the chiropractor since most of my pain has been chest, back and shoulder related and yes I have started meditating. I am not meditating every day but I am trying to get better!
My pain has started to subside and some of the other symptoms that I have are starting to get better so here I am today doing food prep to start on a 6 week challenge. It is nothing crazy, just balancing protein, carbs and fat. I am going back to my favorite gym and plan on working out at least 3 days per week. Everyone has what healthy is to them and what it feels like. I think mine is in reach and I am sure I am ready to go get it again. I hope that whatever your healthy is that you take the path that you love and you find it. Life happens and we all stumble, it’s really about having the courage to get back up and fight.