Giving in does not = being defeated

Titling my blog post this now is easy, but a week ago, I probably would have had a lot harder time with it. Some of you may be like me where you are an over achiever, hard on yourself, like to be in control, and most of the time giving up is not an option. If you want something, you find a way to get it. So when things don't quite go your way no matter how hard you are trying, giving in is basically like saying you have been defeated. I think though, when it comes to certain situations, giving in may be submitting to defeat, but not in every situation. But telling yourself that in the moment of facing defeat, doesn't quite work so well.

Let me back up to Sunday now. Sunday was NOT a good day for me. As most of you know, I have been battling a lot of sickness and knee issues, and have really been trying not to let them bring my spirits down. It was working for the first week. Then it was one of those weekends where one thing happened after another and things were just piling up inside.

I can take being sick, I had been sick with this cough/cold crap for 5 weeks, so you would think getting sick again wouldn't be an issue. Wrong. Especially when I thought I was only going to be sick for maybe 3 days, 5 max. Then back to my normal healthy self again. I set high expectations up for my body and I expected it to listen to me. Wrong again. Then when you set your expectations on yourself, you push to make sure those are met. Bad idea. And then when you don't meet those expectations, what happens? You fail, and you face defeat. Then with my personality, next thing that happens.. you take it out on yourself, become way too hard on yourself and you end up breaking down because you are not performing to your standards. Which does not lead to pretty things! But when it comes to being sick, I should have just known in this circumstance, setting myself up that way was not going to work. I can't control my body, and no matter how hard I tell it to do something, it is not going to listen to me. Instead, I should know better and to just listen to what my body needs and know that if I do that, it will help me get better faster, rather then break me down and make me be sick for much longer. You would think I would know this, but alas my stubbornness kicks in, and I want to will myself into getting better. But it doesn't work like that! So now for my Sunday.

I was already frustrated with some other issues besides my body, so my mind was trying to battle those on top of all this. I had gone to the Dr on thursday and figured out everything that was wrong and was  now taking measures to make things better. So I figured by Sunday, 8 days after getting so sick, I should be worlds better! So the night before I decided oh my stomach should be good now, let's try some cheese and cooked green beans. Bad idea. Sunday on the way to church my stomach was starting to hurt while trying to digest these food items. Which is painful. So of course I just chose to deal with it and ride it off. Smart me decided to try cheese on my turkey sandwich at lunch. Bad idea. So then we went over to train with Brent.

I was excited to be working out and thought maybe if I ignored my stomach, it would be fine. My knee was feeling much better and I was pumped to try my new shoes. We started warming up and my stomach was starting to disagree with lunch. But as usual I was going to keep pushing. My food was not digesting well and all that I kept tasting was acid. Which if you know the taste, you know it's not pleasant and trying to work out with that continually coming up, not the funnest. So Brent starts our training and I am really trying, but my legs are so tight from my knee stuff, and we were doing jumpy things, so now my stomach is jiggling around and making more acid come up, and food bouncing off my walls and for the life of me, no matter how hard I pushed my body said NO. And I have never had to stop during a work out or training and just say no more I can't even do it. So I was like no, I refuse to accept this. I don't quit. And I continue to try even though I physically can barely even move my legs to do mountain climbers. Which is frustrating me because I have never had this issue. So now I am mad at my legs, mad at my stomach, and body. Trying to show them who is boss and I am not winning. So my body decides ok, you won't listen to us, we are going to win, watch us. It then throws in light headedness and nausea. Which at this point, this combo I can not beat. I have never been light headed working out either, which also infuriates me.

I literally drop to the floor. I think maybe I just need a minute to calm down. As I am sitting there, nothing is going away and I realize my body has beat me. I have to throw in the towel. So now besides being angry at my body, I am angry that I have to say I can't do this and that I am feeling all these things. Disappointment in myself is now being added to the mix. And naturally, I start crying from frustration. And I have never cried during a work out. Let alone in front of my trainer. So now I feel like a complete wuss on top of it and am angry I am crying in front of my trainer. This is an awful combo of feelings, but I had no choice to give in. So he just had me stretch with the foam roller, and do any ab things I could that wouldn't upset my stomach. Which I felt better about that I could at least handle something. So we finished our work out and headed home. I thought my irritation and frustration for the day was over. Wrong again.

As we are heading home I am trying to think about what I can eat. Before getting sick we were on our diets, and my thought process was I will just try to stick as close to diet as possible even when sick. Well this thought process wasn't working, and I was not giving my stomach enough food, nor what it needed to heal, which was pro-longing the process of healing. So as my thoughts were on what to eat, I pretty much hit my breaking point. I ended up at my mom's house having a break down. I had limited myself to basically soup, crackers, soup, and maybe a pb&j, here and there. Well let me tell you, one can only eat so much soup. I was so sick of eating even less then I was before I got sick with choices. But I was fighting my mind battle of trying to continue how I was before I got sick and work through it like nothing was wrong with me. I didn't want to have to give in and go off our diet completely and waste all the work I had done from the weeks before. And I realized if I gave up on my own soup diet, I would give in to carb world and in my mind of course I would end up gaining a million pounds etc. So I was fighting it but now I couldn't take the misery anymore. And I was now angry I once again had the feeling of being defeated, and my body had won again. My expectations had not been reached, and so ensued the being hard on myself of why can't my body be healed, how come what I am doing isn't enough and why do I have to be sick this long? Which in turn brought upon another part of my breakdown. The being sick of being sick thought process.

So now along with all the other things, I am now realizing I can't make getting better any faster no matter how hard I try. And setting myself up to say ok by monday I should be fine to do this etc etc instead of just saying no, wait till the end of the week and let everything  heal more. So then I would try, and guess what, it didn't work. So now I get to be angry that I have failed at yet again another expectation. So not being able to work out, and not being able to eat what I wanted to yet just led to a giant I am SICK of being sick. I had that cough/cold combo for 5 weeks. I just kicked it, and bam, I get sick with this now. So now I have been sick for 6 weeks straight. And during this whole process, it has completely botched my eating diet, botched my working out diet, botched my training for 10k, and put me behind who knows how much. So this will most defiantly end up in a breakdown! And I had tried so hard to be positive during all this. But I felt defeated in myself. Disappointed I wasn't at the point I wanted to be.

I went to Velocity even though I really did not want to be there. My head was a mess, I was a mess, and being with other people just was not on my to do list. But I needed to remove my emotions and go for the kids. So I went feeling like I was 10 feet under the ground and just felt ridden with failure. I talked to some other leaders in my coaching group about this and they snapped me back to reality. They made me realize I really need to listen to my body and take care of it. That I needed to forego diet and just give my body what it needs. If I don't I am going to be sick a lot longer then if I just gave in. As hard as it was for me to admit, I knew they were right. And it was only for a week, it's not like I will gain 90 lbs! And I was so miserable, this just wasn't worth trying to stay close to the diet. They also suggested probiotics. I went to whole foods and got these:

So far, I think they really seem to be helping! I did an easy work out today, and I am going to try some meat and dairy tonight and see how my stomach handles. I am not in any pain digesting anymore, or just in general! 

I guess the conclusion to all this, is sometimes giving in doesn't mean giving up or submitting to defeat. In this instance, the importance of taking care of my body versus sticking to the diet was much greater. It is hard to see that when you have been working so hard on one thing and now you just have to stop and hope it doesn't throw you off. It's not like I have been out eating fast food or anything, so I have tried to be good even off my diet (whole wheat, still minimal sugars, etc.) It is true how we are our worst critics, and sometimes, we have to let our bodies tell us what we need, not our heads. Which is hard for a controlling personality like myself! I can't keep doing my work outs and eat healthy if I don't take care of my stomach to be able to digest them! So a short road block, but I don't think it's going to hurt  me too much in the long run. 

Anyone else have these same problems of getting out of your mind?

Patience!!!