Monday 3 March 2014

Negativity and the effects of..

Howdy,

First blog in a while, because I've been depressed and hiding in my room. Seriously, I have.. 

I've recently been unwell, having caught one of those 36 hour bugs which I don't usually get. It actually knocked me rotten. I have struggled to get back to where I was fitness wise since then, but I've listened to my body and taken it slowly. Been gentle with myself for probably the first time ever. 

During this period, I also volunteered to be the guinea pig for a friend who is completing an assessment in her fitness course. I was just starting to feel better, and I was just getting back into walking. Life was returning to normal. I arrived for my first session to be weighed and measured..  I was pretty upbeat and happy that I could help.

After I left that session, I collapsed into a state of deep depression. According to an electronic device sold in chemists, that measures an electrical current and the resistance your body has to it, my body fat percentage was 40%. 

40% WTF?

 All I could think of was almost half of my remaining body weight is fat? I'm a size 12 and I have 40% body fat? How much did I have before I lost 70kgs? 160%?

This figure rocked me to the core. I eat Paleo, I do not eat chocolate, or lollies, or drink alcohol etc. I exercise every day of the week. And most of that exercise is high energy, hard work exercise. I run 4 times a week. All these things were spinning through my head at a million miles an hour. I went to my local gym to see what the machine there said, but no one knew how to use it. Probably a good thing.

That number has spent the last week rattling around in my head. I've spent hours web searching how to make a difference, other than exercise every day and eat well. That number has consumed me, my waking thoughts, my dreams at night. I have not been in a good place. 

Over the weekend, I gave myself a bit of a pep talk - I couldn't believe that I had let something as silly as a digital number in a screen have such a negative effect on my head. I got up this morning with a renewed zest for exercise and headed off to Boot Camp. I huffed and puffed my way through 50 minutes of hard work, of weights and burpees and push-ups... And I feel fantastic.

I've drank more water today than I probably did for the whole of last week, and I feel more energetic, more alive and much happier than at any stage in the last fortnight. 

Today I found out that the machine was not reading right, and according the the good old calliper pinch test, my results are nowhere near that. But, even if they were, it's a number. Just like the reading on the scales, it does not define you. You are not your weight. You are a beautiful, alive, happy, healthy woman that does her best to get where she wants to go, every day.

In the last fortnight, I have not blogged because I have felt like a fraud, a fake, all because of that one bloody number.  But really, Why should it matter? 

If, as a person, you know in your heart that you are doing the best you can every day, to reach your goal, that should be all that matters. You against you. Your personal best of yesterday against your personal best of today. Your goals, your life, your way.

That's what matters. Not the scales, not the body fat percentage, not the callipers.. 

You matter, your health matters, and your happiness matters. Do what you can do to make a difference to those. 

I'm glad I crawled out from my cave of sadness this morning... Hope you are too. It's a much nicer world out here.


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