I was going to post about the polynesian feast today. I lied. Tomorrow.
Today, I have to tell a tale. I’m not nearly as good at this as Jack Sh*t, but lemme give it a try…
Once upon a time, there was this incredibly neurotic girl named, uh, Quin. Quin had decided that she was going to finally make some progress with her weight, and decided to shake it up a bit by trying a video called Jillybean Mackrel’s 30 day shred. Even though she had been taught that it was bad to use weights two days in a row, she figured that Jillybean, being a famous trainer, knew best.
She put on the DVD and the first week, she got through 5 days. Her legs stung and her arms throbbed but in a good way. The second week, it was more of the same, but it felt as if she was getting less sore. This was awesome! The third week, she started to fall apart and hurt. It wasn’t so bad, so she kept going. The fourth week, she just couldn’t do it anymore. Her heels revolted and screamed at her. Her knee kept threatening to pop out of place. Her left wrist could barely give a hi-five.
At the end of this adventure, she decided to take the weekend off of Jillybean’s torture, but apparently forgot about her pretty pretty princess back. PPPB was trying to be tolerant of everything going on, and felt bad that Quin had to endure knee pain and wrist pain and screaming heels, and was THRILLED to hear there would be a rest. But then she realized the rest wasn’t for her.
PPPB was tortured even further. At least moving helped keep her limber. Friday, she was subjected to playing a game on the laptop, sitting on a plastic chair, and barely getting up for about 5 hours straight. Both Saturday and Sunday, she had to stay very stationary while Quin intently wrote. Saturday afternoon, she was granted a reprieve – or so she thought. It was time to get up… and stand in the kitchen for a few hours preparing food. Then, during party time, she was forced to deal with high heeled boots and a lot more standing and running around.
By Monday, she had enough. PPPB enjoyed the sleeping in, but then at lunch when Quin went to grab her gym bag (seriously, folks…this is what set it off, I even lifted from the knees), she said, “uh UH girlfriend” and decided to pull the ol’ tailbone hurty sports injury trick. At first it wasn’t so bad, but then an afternoon sitting at the office made Quin walk like a grandma. She was even having trouble pushing the grocery cart. There was no running to be had. Quin even relented and gave up all forms of exercise for the night – there is just nothing that can be done with a hurty back. She took some pain killers and got a nice icy hot massage from her wonderful…uh…Zoltan. Yes, apparently she is married to a fortune teller, don’t judge.
She woke up the next morning, and was feeling better, thank you very much, but not all-the-way better, so she decided another day off was in order. She had been very frightened of the scale but got up all of her courage and put her tippie toe on it slowly, then another, then another, and it finally registered a weight:
153.0.
She could not believe it. She stepped on it again.
153.0
Not the lowest she has ever weighed, but definitely lower than normal. And this was after a weekend lacking formal activity, increased eating, no tracking, and eating super late the night before. Certainly not what she expected to start the week at – oh no.
The moral of this story is that sometimes the body just needs what it needs. And it will tell you any way it can. If it whispers, and you don’t listen, sometime it will shout.
No more weight training on consecutive days for a while, and if I do in the future, try to make it focused on different body parts on different days. More yoga. Taking standing breaks at work/writing/while playing even if I’m really in the flow of something. Trying to get my words in every day so I don’t have to do marathon sessions. And maybe it will make week 1 of half training a little more jarring, but I think ol’ body needed more than just a weekend rest. And that, it shall have.
Some days, do you need a smack on the head? Does life sometimes try to whisper and you don’t listen? Hey, at least I hear shouting (I had halfway considered the ol’ painkiller and pushthrough technique, even though it’s specifically what I told Charlotte in a comment not to do! Bad me. At least I didn’t actually do it!)…