I know. Me, too. Hard to keep your metabolism high & burnin’ when you can’t lift heavy weights or run intervals. I love what the folks at Precision Nutrition do for education & coaching, especially their infographics that pack solutions into one-page visuals. Their portion guide won’t solve all our issues around cravings and emotional eating, but see if their guidelines here can get you back on a better eating track.
I’m a little stymied in the Den of Positivity this week. But how about… Birthday #46 was awesome. Love from friends held me up all day.
Despite my efforts to be mindful with posture & gait on crutches, all my single crutch use in February aggravated an old injury in my thoracic spine that I was never properly treated for (Whiplash from a 2001 car accident..? Too-heavy bag over the shoulder in grad school..?); my shoulder girdle has caused me more pain this month than my healing hamstrings, which are 4 months PO tomorrow. Shoulder & rib pain wake me like clockwork in the early morning hours. It’s maddening. Ibuprofen and thoracic spine mobility exercises on the foam roller help a little. Mercifully, I’m still good looking.
I saw my primary care doc yesterday to rule out any lung or breast tissue issues. After we’d poked around the sorest spots on my back & chest she said, “It’s definitely musculo-skeletal in nature, the cause of which, quite frankly, can be a bit of a mystery. An MRI probably won’t clarify things unless it were to show a great wad of tendonitis somewhere. In the end it comes down to more physical therapy with someone who can look at you wholistically to figure out how your posterior chain injuries are affecting your shoulder girdle.”
Yesterday became a flurry of phone calls between my insurance company and my poor exhausted PT who spent Easter weekend holding together her stomach flu-ridden young family. How many PT sessions do I have left in this plan year? When does the plan year end and reset to 30 more sessions? Am I independent enough with the hamstring exercises at home to be able to switch the focus of PT from hamstrings to shoulder? If 46 feels like fuckedy-fuck, what will 56 feel like..?
I plan on making sure 47 feels better than 46. A single Feldenkrais class last week taught me that hinging at my hips first in order to bend & pick stuff up off the floor feels a lot better than rounding my back first. Slowing down the pace of my *every*thing, from breath to body to thoughts, makes *every*thing better. Everything. And no amount of mindfulness training makes that happen without taking my ADHD & anxiety meds. I don’t care how many happy joy-joy images I conjure, cleansing breaths I take, or how much sugar & wheat I cut out of my diet – clarity is *not* happening without enough dopamine & serotonin to slow this hummingbird head. Take away the highs of a run or a hot, heavy, & breathless weight-lifting session on top of that..? Don’t get me started on the b.s. propaganda hoo-ha of that latest Netflix documentary meant to scare parents & kids away from stimulant medications. People, please. Do your research. Pick up a book or journal and read. Don’t have the patience to read, only to watch a video? I take stimulant meds for that.
What was I talking about…? I’m so distractible… 47! 47 will feel better than 46. That’s my goal. Slow down, Meg. Happiness is trying to catch you. Onward.
“A deeply good person looks after you and others in a manner that is infused with gratitude. She is profoundly honest about her own weaknesses and has spent a lifetime of self-confrontation of them. She knows where the best help is and gets it. She faces her imperfect nature with unvarnished honesty…and has an outstretched arm, ready to receive and offer assistance. Her friends are there for deep conversation, comfort and advice…for there’s joy in mutual stumbling. She doesn’t build her life by being better than others, but by being better than she used to be.”
– David Brooks, The Moral Bucket List
Here’s to joy in mutual stumbling.
Better to be inching forward than be stuck. Also, don’t do cartwheels on the beach. Or anywhere.
Take it easy out there, New England Hamsters…
The whole PMS/hamstring recovery combo is *not* pretty.
Den of Positivity 