It had been a week since I last pounded the pavement but this morning I got back out there and stomped down for 15 minutes. It’s not a lot but not a little. Whilst the in-laws were here it was difficult to keep in my rhythm, in my routine and running. I ate strangely - you could say ‘normally’ but I would say strangely compared to the previous few weeks. I’d also consumed as much alcohol as I consumed all year. I find it incredible how much eating badly and not ‘exercising’ - ie. raising my heart rate - affects my mood. From Sunday until pretty much today, I’ve been veering a lot more towards misery. Let’s not be dramatic, let’s call it a heaviness. Everything I try to do feels a lot more difficult, down to filling up my water just after I sat down or cooking a meal with the appropriate amount of vegetables, or cooking a meal at all. I think I have a slow metabolism. I think it’s abnormal, abnormally slow. Inês can basically eat whatever she likes and nothing will happen to her. She can eat a pack of sour laces and a few chocolates and she’ll be just fine the next day. No fair. Me on the other hand, if I step out of line even slightly I am punished with a heavy stomach, bloating in my body and face and the inability to get out of bed in the morning. This is compounded when I break from a diet or exercise pattern that has been working well for me. If I’m normally eating.. suboptimal-y.. then the effects wear off, but if my body has been a temple (in the 90s when you could still smoke inside it) then this alteration in diet basically kills me. Let’s not be dramatic, let’s say slows me down. All of this is to say that since I’ve rediscovered my routine and eating habits (harder than you think) I feel a lot better.
All of this is to say no matter how much you don’t want to run or don’t feel like going to the gym or sweating a bit, if you do it and do it right it can change so much that you’ll feel like a new person, more or less. I’ve written about running before and it’s something I’m very passionate about despite taking many months of breaks at a time. There is something about that part where you’ve got a base level of fitness and can run for 15 minutes or so (when starting out or again this a big milestone) that does make it enjoyable. When you don’t feel like stopping because it hurts because you know that your body can do it. In fact, you shouldn’t be running so that it hurts. It shouldn’t feel as horrible as it does to so many people. I am by no means an expert but I have subjective experience, and I have ‘started running’ at least 10 times in my life. I am incredibly grateful for my body and that it’s able to do what it does and if yours can’t I am sorry, there are other ways I’m sure to find this feeling. I don’t think I would be a great motivational speaker I tend to get caught off track, on a tangent every now and then.
In other news I have decided that I think I need to re-skill out of humanities and in to some kind of STEM discipline. Not for my happiness necessarily, but then again I now consider it to be almost impossible to find something that will make me truly happy. So I might as well do something I find mildly interesting for more money. This reminds me of a government ad from a couple of years ago that if I remember correctly was pulled due being insensitive.
I am waiting for a callback from yesterday’s interview that I am expecting, according to the recruiter, later today or early tomorrow morning. I think a call means good news but one can never assume such a thing.
Back eating ‘properly’ means back eating ‘boring’, but today at least I found some reasonably priced salmon. It will be our first fish of the year if you discount tuna from a tin and I am very excited about this. I will photograph this and show you tomorrow as a landmark moment like this should be highlighted.
à demain !