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Walker’s Block
By Administrator | December 2, 2006
Now we’re into a new month and I haven’t gotten myself going in the exercise department yet. I did have something of an excuse (albeit a flimsy one) in that I was participating in the November writing marathon that is Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month, if you don’t know) and I only had around 7,000 of the 50,000 necessary to “win” by November 30th. The whole point of this madness is that writers are able to challenge themselves to write something, anything, that adds up to 50,000 words within the space of a month. Let me tell you, this is not easy.
Yet I did manage to finish by the deadline: I had 50, 024 as of 6:00pm on the evening of November 30th (a full six hours prior to the deadline), thanks to several days of almost non-stop writing; despite the fact that I also had to maintain my normal work, family, and life in general schedule on top of that.
What I learned this year, besides the fact that I’m a horrible procrastinator, is that I can accomplish whatever I set my mind to when I motivate myself. The fact that I was able to do this with my writing is a good indication that I should also be able to do it in other areas of my life - including my health and physical conditioning. I’ve got to remember that when I have those days when I’m just not motivated to get out and do anything.
My general practitioner and I are also in the process of adjusting my blood pressure medication so that I am better able to function. I’ve been on my present medications for more than a decade and they just don’t seem to work as well as they did at first. They can’t be stopped cold turkey so I have to be “weaned” off at least one of them. I’ve been feeling a little funky in the time that I’ve been reducing my dosage; not in a bad, or “I need to go to the hospital” way, but just different. My blood pressure has finally come down to what is considered the normal range and I’m thinking that I just have to adjust to not having my system working at fast-forward.
Still, this has given me another reason to put off exercising because when I exert myself I tend to have the odd feeling more than I do while resting. I think I’m just going to have to push myself past the fear that I’m going to drop from a heart attack at any second and start building up my heart muscle again. My health will not improve if I just continue to sit around. So I’m once again planning to get out and get moving. I dug out all my old exercise videos and I am going to start using the easiest one when I get up on weekday mornings. I’ve also got to get outside for at least a half hour walk each day.
The most frustrating part of this whole situation is that I was running earlier this year and was able to do nearly 3.5 miles non-stop in about mid-August. Now, just three months later, I can barely walk up a flight of stairs. I don’t know what happened, but I’m going to get back to where I was before. I’m just going to have to start slow and be patient with myself. This isn’t going to happen overnight.
Topics: Health/Wellness |
