The Duck's Nest: online home of mizducky

Body go gesproingit

One of the things that I did yesterday that made me feel really good about the day was that I got a bunch of walking in. One of the things which I did today which didn't feel so good was entertaining a bunch of body pain from yesterday's walking. I dunno if it's my arthritis, or being out of shape, or both that are responsible for this sorry state of affairs. Actually, on reflection I do think it's both--hard to be enthusiastic about any kind of exercise when it tends to bring on pain, but hard to make any headway against the pain unless I get some exercise.

One reason why yesterday's walking was such a success was that I was wandering around in the middle of Hillcrest, San Diego's LGBT neighborhood, which is a fun place to explore on foot. If I'm motivated to walk by something interesting to me, it's easier to transcend the physical discomfort. Sure beats trying to transcend the pain in a boring gym on some buring exercise equipment.

Right now, there's nothing for it but to tough out the current discomfort. I've done the hot bath thing, and a few other things, and those have helped. But now it's getting to the point where I should try just sleeping it off. Boy, bodies can be such a pain in the butt.

So what's happening with my weight management project these days, anyway?

Those of you who had been faithfully following my whole weigh management oddyssey from mizducky's migrations might wonder what's behind the long silence on that blog. Well, long story short: when the weight management thing was my then-current front-and-center primary enthusiasm, things were going great. But eventually, life moved on, and my energies turned to other and newer enthusiasms, and ... things are not going quite so great on the healthy eating front.

They haven't gone all to hell, mind you; but I have put back about ten pounds, and have gotten considerably sloppier in my eating habits. Especially since I've been recently putting so much energy into writing and other creative pursuits, which seem to involve long hours of physical inactivity in front of a computer and deep into the night, messing with my already-lackluster attempts at exercise as well as my sleep schedule.

The fact of the matter is, I obviously know how to eat healthy and lose weight when I make it the primary focus of my life, to the point of having no life outside of that. What I still haven't quite figured out is how to stay on the eating-healthy thing when I'm busy having a life and focussing on something else. And I'm especially bad at doing that when I'm deep in a creative process. I tend to get extremely self-indulgent when I'm writing like hell--and that is a huge temptation to the ol' Lizard Brain to come roaring in and bite me in the ass.

However--and I swear I don't find this to be rationalization--I might not be doing badly after all. Loosening up a little, even putting back ten pounds, is not necessarily the end of the world. As long as I don't let it go any further than that. In recent days I finally realized I just plain don't feel as good physically as I did when my food was cleaner and I was getting more exercise. That in itself is a good sign. It's one thing to screw around with the plan and enjoy it; it's another to realize the screwing-around isn't even particularly pleasant.

So ... gently but firmly, I'm working to bring this part of my life back in gear, but without making it the entirety of my life like I was doing before. Will I succeed? Stay tuned!