Lesson learned from week 1 of the FIT challenge… you can always work harder. In addition my workouts, I pushed myself harder than I have in weeks… really in months. Some people tackled an entire challenge in one day. I’m talking doing 100 bicep curls, 250 pushups, and 25 pull-ups in one day… on top of their workout. Sure, it’s possible for me to do that, and I certainly would love to try.
That’s the biggest problem with chronic pain and chronic fatigue syndrome… you don’t always feel the consequences right away. I can’t tell you how many times I crushed a workout and felt great…. right up until I was barely able to walk the next day… or had such pain that flared up every nerve that I had managed to forget. So while others crushed a challenge a day, I worked on bits and pieces of each challenge, working up to finally finish one on Friday.
Monday
- 100 roundhouses
- 10 burpees
- 50 oblique crunches
- 25 push-ups
- 1 minute plank
Tuesday
- 100 bicep curls
- 50 push-ups
- 30 burpees
- 2 pull ups
- 2 minute plank
- 50 burpees
Wednesday
Tuesday had been leg day, and I pushed myself harder than usual… and apparently my hamstrings couldn’t take it… I was barely able to hobble around the next day and decided to take a day off. Afterwards, I kind of wish I had gone to class… sometimes working out, even if it isn’t my all, is a better way to heal.
Thursday
- 23 pull-ups
- 50 speed skaters
- 20 squat jumps with a medicine ball
- 30 leg extensions with resistance band
- 10 burpees
- 75 pushups
Friday
Go time… I was 100 pushups away from finishing the above mentioned challenge and I knew I wasn’t going to make the Saturday class so I powered through them… and got my first cache clue!
Week 2 & Spoon Theory
With Labor Day taking out Monday’s workout, I made it to Tuesday’s class and completed another challenge after finishing 100 burpees, 100 speed skaters and 100 squat jumps. But sometimes, you have to know when to preserve your energy.
When it comes to chronic pain and chronic fatigue syndrome, we often reference “spoon theory.” This is the concept that we start each day with a finite number of spoons, used as currency towards the events of the day. You can use them evenly over the day, or use more for a specific event in the day. You can even borrow spoons from other days, but know that you will be costing yourself the energy from that day. If you borrow to many spoons, you will inevitably crash, and often times, have fewer spoons for the next few days as you recover from that crash.
Wednesday, I met up with friends to discuss writing… something that replenishes me and makes me feel re-energized for my own projects. I could have left early to go to the gym, but decided not to worry on it. Thursday, I spent the day tending to Damir after his surgery and dealing with a cold so by Friday, I was so drained that I knew any exercise would wipe me out. It would normally be fine, if I hadn’t had a full day of work ahead of me Saturday. And after a full day on my feet, I knew there would be no “running to make up for it” like I had promised myself earlier in the day.
While I am certainly disappointed that I didn’t keep up with my momentum I am also just as proud that I have accomplished as much as I did this week. I know what overexerting my energy does to me and I don’t want to crash. I’m getting better at understanding that a week of poor exercise and eating will not undo all of my hard work, just as a week of hard work does not undo all of my poor eating… as long as I get back on track. So I will give my self permission to relax and start fresh next week… I still have quite a few challenges to complete!
Hi! I'm Alyce. 
