It’s something that happens to just about everyone. With every victory can come a setback. It’s where we’ve heard the term “One step forward, two steps back”, and it can most certainly feel this way, and be most discouraging. Often times, all it takes is for one thing to fall out of place for it to create a huge domino effect that ripples through everything else in our lives.
When it comes to bettering your health, this certainly CAN, and likely WILL happen. Many factors can come into play as to “why” this can occur. In my case, injury has caused a major setback. A break from my routine will throw things off for both diet and exercise. A vacation away or the start of a major project has done this as well. Once the cycle is broken, sometimes its very difficult to get back on the right track. Depression, or anxiety are huge factors into how one will feel and how focused one will remain with their health and other areas of their life.
All of these things can be overcome, they all just take time. Time isn’t always our friend. We live in an age of instant gratification, we can order something online and have it delivered in less than 48 hours to our front door, or for instant pickup in the parking lot (you never have to get out of your car!). Things like UberEats make it to where we never have to leave the house to eat from our favorite restaurants. Everything is one click away! Well, except for making changes to our overall health, that is. That takes time, patience, and practice.
2018 was a good year for me. I learned a lot about myself in terms of underlying issues that had gone unaddressed for many years. I read, I watched, and I studied from those who were experts in the field of diet and gut health. I made adjustments to my lifestyle and saw dramatic changes happen. They didn’t happen overnight, but it really didn’t take too long before I could FEEL the positive impact it was making to my overall health. To rewind a bit, I suffered for years with gastrointestinal distress and acid reflux. An endoscopy confirmed that I had a lot of inflammation in my stomach and esophagus. I was prescribed antacids, but was still having to take Tums after each meal even with the use of the prescription strength pills. That’s when I made the choice to go grain free and sugar free, and boy, did it make a world of difference! I no longer needed to use antacids, I had so much more energy, I lost weight, and I felt the best I ever had in my life.
2019 came and things began to taper off. While on vacation with my family in mid January, I sustained a back injury that took me out for a couple of days. While trying to find help at unfamiliar clinics in the area, I got the flu virus. For the entirety of my vacation, I was out from a hurt back and feeling the worst I’ve felt in years. It continued on after I got home for another couple of weeks before I felt back to normal. A good 3 weeks I was off of my regular diet and exercise. Just as I was getting back into the swing of things, I was working on an ab exercise using an ab roller, when “POP!” “CRACKLE!” “TEAR!”. It was the worst sound and it happened just inches from my left ear. I knew right away I had re-injured the bicep tendon in my left shoulder. I rested it for a couple of weeks, not doing any type of exercise that would involve those muscles, which limited me to not a lot of options. After the rest, things were feeling well enough I thought I could do some light exercises with it. Just 1 day back in the gym, the pain set in so bad I knew I had jumped the gun. A visit to the doctors office confirmed this, but luckily no surgery was required. “You’ll need to back off of exercise for at least 30 days to let this heal.” Great, not what I needed. The track was now broken and the train was about to derail.
If you’re anything like me, diet and exercise go hand in hand. If one falls off, the other is sure to follow. If I’ve worked out, it keeps me motivated to eat all the right foods. If I eat something bad, it makes me feel terrible and I lose my motivation go workout. Silly, I know, to let one thing effect the other so much, but for me it does. So with all this time I took off from exercise to let myself heal, I hurt myself in other ways. My activity levels were low, so all the food I was accustomed to burning off from exercise was now being stored as fat. Now, one might think “Shouldn’t seeing the weight come back on be motivation in itself?” Sure it is! But, it might not be enough.
Having your routine and your progress come to a grinding halt, and you begin to back peddle, that can become quite the slippery slope. Regaining traction is often easier said than done. This is where it becomes a mental game, which can be the biggest obstacle to overcome. As I lost momentum, I lost my energy and motivation. My creativity in the gym and kitchen fell away and I succumbed to some old habbits. To quote a certain character from the Austin Powers movies “I eat because I’m unhappy. And I’m unhappy because I eat.” Though this line is coming from a slap stick comedy, that line rings true for many people. It’s truly a vicious cycle, and only with the right mindset can you break away from it. Again, easier said than done.
It took me 6 weeks to feel healed enough to do go back to light duty workouts. Taking baby steps to make sure I was fully healed so that I wouldn’t re-injure myself. In doing so, I began to find my rhythm again. I was feeling motivated once more and my creativity was once again sparked. I was in a slump, and I had to climb my way back out of it. No one can do it for you, it’s something you have to want!
The important thing to remember here is, don’t lose hope. Perhaps you’ve put some unwanted pounds back on. Perhaps you’re still not fully healed. Perhaps you picked up some old habits. That doesn’t mean it’s time to throw in the towel! Sometimes, even just taking a couple weeks off can feel like starting all over again. Do not let that become a mental road block from picking back up where you left off. Just take things a little bit at a time until you’ve regained that momentum once again that was just briefly lost. One good habit will lead into another, and then another, and then another, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. It’s the doing that matters! What may seem like nothing in the moment will certainly show later down road when the habit is kept up, good or bad.
There is a quote I feel is worth remembering: “Nothing in nature blooms year round. Be patient with yourself.”
