Mulligan

The bronchitis cleared up quicker than I thought it would, and I was able to get back to Stronglifts Monday of last week! I just started back at the beginning after nearly two weeks of no lifting thanks to schedule conflicts and sickness. Not too happy about it since I had planned it just perfectly to wrap my 12 weeks the Friday before we leave for the beach in July – now I’ll have that random rest week around week 10, which WILL be filled by a bodyweight workout substitute while we are beaching it up, but I didn’t really want to take a random rest week in there. Although, who knows? Maybe by the time I hit week 10 I’ll be happy for a rest week!

One thing I’m irritated with myself for: not completing all 3 training workouts last week. It was again a time/schedule issue. I did get plenty of cardio in with some laser tag action, but I still am feeling rather guilty about it. And on top of this I’m feeling totally fat. I don’t know if this is a hormonal deal or what, but I’m so over it. I keep bouncing back and forth between wanting to say “screw it” and just never exercising/calorie tracking again, and feeling like I should go crazy with the cardio to burn the extra calories just to shrink. I wish I liked cardio more. It definitely is something I feel I would benefit from doing more of – not just from a weight loss/fat loss standpoint, but just from a “hey, my heart will love me!” standpoint. Granted, I walk pretty regularly and run around with my kids and occasionally do things like go laser tagging, not to mention the running up and down the stairs while doing laundry, vacuuming, mopping, etc. while at home. These are all “cardio” activities. They count. But when I’m feeling “fluffy” and stalled, I immediately wish I could motivate to get up and go jog for 30 minutes in the mornings or evenings, or wish that doing some jumping jacks and high-knees could be fun for me. But, alas, these things are soooooooo boooooorrrring. My dad and I have been chatting about going to play tennis a few times a week in the evenings, but the weather here in Virginia has not been steadily warm enough to actually make this happen – plus I get to feeling a little guilty about this kind of stuff because then I feel like I’m not spending enough time with my children and husband… and then I feel more guilty because I feel like my husband can never can take his own health/exercise situation into consideration because he’s too busy supporting my attempt at a more active lifestyle.

Basically is all boils down to: life is hard. And it’s hard in the most stupid and First World ways. If we just lived NOT in modern society we wouldn’t have to exercise on purpose because our entire day would be filled with activity and manual labor. Plus there would be no junk food accessible for putting into my mouth.

…then again, there would also be no modern medicine… or tampons. These would be serious issues for me on a very real and understandable level.

I guess I will just continue to battle my mommy/wife guilt and do my best and stop trying to worry about the immediate result and focus more on the eventual result.

Maybe some of these feelings of fluffiness are stemming from last week being the first week of not stepping on the scale and maybe it is making me irritable. I wanna know. I WANT TO KNOW! But I’m not going to cheat on this. This is one thing I can just NOT cheat on… because obviously that whole “quit smoking” thing was a total joke, because I’m nowhere close. I’ve successfully cut back to “winter” smoker status in that I’m pretty much only smoking on the weekends or while drinking which equals not quite a pack a week… this is better than half a pack a day. But smoking is smoking regardless, and I’m disappointed in myself for not being able to just not do it. It’s like I’ll have to hermit myself away for a month with no socialization and no alcohol consumption in order to break the habit. Because that’s all it is: habit. There’s no physical addiction for me – it’s all about socialization and it feeling “fun” to smoke while having a drink.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

As you all may be able to tell, I’m in a bit of a negative place right now… this may have everything to do with not getting fully and for real back into my lifting routine which this may be adding to already-in-progress hormone craziness happening in my body as I come up on every girl’s favorite time of the month and this may also just be a totally legit feeling of frustration due to the overwhelming reality that is being your average 21^st century young working wife/mother. I’m just feeling a little jaded and guilty right now, I guess. And the only solution to that is to really think about it and figure what it is that’s bothering me and making me feel guilty and stop doing those things or change them in some way.

Looks like there may be yet even more personal revelation around the bend.

Stay tuned!