Ok, so I want to just go to bed but I need to get this out before I go to sleep because I will not be able to express this properly in the morning after a good nights sleep. The feelings will be gone and I will not write about it and I feel I need to write about this because I am hoping that my ramblings can help someone else that is struggling with the same thing...unless I am the only one with these issues.
Tonight, my body is tired after going to the gym and having a, well the only way to say it is, a sucky workout. I had planned to do 1 hour of cardio and 1/2 hour of stretching...but that didn't happen. I arrived at the gym at about 7:30 and got into my workout clothes. Now, to make this clear, when I walked into the gym, I was emotionally and physically tired and was wondering if I should actually go to the gym. There are times when going to the gym when feeling emotionally tired and stressed is a good thing. Add in being physically tired and you have a recipe for disaster...as in my case tonight!
I think there is a huge difference between being emotionally or physically tired. When I am physically tired, I can overcome the tiredness by resting and getting a good sleep. When I am emotionally tired, I can get myself into alot of trouble with food and negative thoughts. It is much harder for me to overcome the emotional tiredness/stress.
I know that I am still an emotional eater and I will likely be one for the rest of my life, like a recovering alcoholic. They are alcoholics for life. What I need to do is to break the connection between my emotions and food. Does anyone know how to do that? Is it something that I have to work out myself? Can anyone ever fully recover from being an emotional eater or am I going to have to struggle with this for the rest of my life?? Why do I turn to food for emotional comfort? These are all questions that I would love to have the answer to.
I feel so tired right now and emotionally drained that I just really want to go to bed. But I need to say a little more about my feelings tonight.
I did only 25 minutes of cardio at the gym and a bit of stretching and then decided to call it a night and I went into the sauna and had a shower. I cut my workout short because I was physically and emotionlly tired and my body is sore. My knees are sore, my hip is sore and I have something going on with one of my legs that is giving me a lot of pain.
While I was working out, I was thinking of the Johnny Miles 5 km race that is on Sunday. I have a goal to run the 5k in under 30 minutes. I was thinking about how I was going to work through the pain and reach my goal. I got to thinking that if the pain is still there on Sunday there is a very rare chance that I will be able to reach my goal. I don't like it when my goals are not reached and then I feel like a failure. I started thinking that I may be better off not running in the Johnny Miles at all. If I don't run than I can't fail...right!?!? Oh, the negativity!
Now when I was leaving the gym I was feeling like a failure because my workout was sucky and I had the desire to eat pizza. I know that the only reason that I want the pizza is due to the fact that I feel emotionally tired. I really don't want to eat for emotional reasons. I want to eat because my body needs fuel. I started feeling worse because I realized that I was still an emotional eater and I thought that I had made some progress in that area. Apparently, I still have a lot of work to do with this. This added more fuel to the fire and I wanted the pizza more. But, I knew that I could not give into my feelings because that is what the old Dawn would have done. I want to change my life and to have the pizza because of emotional reasons would be taking steps backwards and I only want to move forward.
I wonder, if I had just went home instead of going to the gym tonight, would I have been faced with these feelings? Did I try to push myself to much and it backfired? Maybe I need to listen to my body and my feelings a little more instead of ignoring what it is trying to tell me.
At this moment, I am not sure if I have made progress with my emotional eating issue. My thoughts are starting to jumble together because I am soo tired. I think I will get some sleep and revisit my situation in the morning. Hopefully, a good sleep will help me to move forward with this.
dawn try not to beat yourself up, after all you are only human. i can certainly relate to being an emotional eater,and it is hard to get the negative out..but on a positive note ...you did go to the gym and even though you only did half of what you wanted to do thats twice as much then if you wouldnt have went at all...you should be patting yourself on the back. i seen you the other day and i'll tell you all i seen when i looked at you was a strong, beautiful, confident woman..and you are such an inspiration .
ReplyDeleteDawn, you're right sometimes we just have to listen to our bodies. You have been pushing yourself really hard, it's not failure to take a day off if your body is tired...it's smart. You have come so far and no one ever said this would be easy. If it was easy then we wouldn't feel so great for achieving our goals. So last night was just a difficult moment for you, I'll bet after a good night's sleep you'll feel like a new person today and you should be proud today that you got a workout in even though you were so tired. As far as the Johnny Miles goes, my goal was to do the 10k but I pulled a hamstring a few weeks ago and now i have to settle for doing the 5k instead, that's very disappointing for me, I trained hard for about 8 weeks and was up to running 9k without stopping, then i had to stop running for a couple of weeks and slowly build back up, the most i have done since then is 6km, very slowly. I have felt very disappointed about not being able to reach the goal I set out to reach and I also considered not going at all, but I've had time to think about it now and I am going to run the 5k, and my time may be slower that my Fit for Lit time but that's ok because a year ago I couldn't have even imagined trying to run 5k. So I'm going to go and enjoy the experience and I will be proud of whatever my time is. My point is you need to be soooooo proud of yourself, just running a 5k is a major accomplishment...not everyone can do it. You've come so far and worked so hard for everything you've achieved, don't be disappointed by any time on a clock. We should set goals so we can move forward and challenge ourselves not so that we can feel like a failure if we fall a little short. So I"ll see you at the Johnny Miles (probably from behind because I won't be doing it in under 30...lol)and I hope you'll be smiling at the finish line no matter what the clock says!
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