Excuses and the Old Married Couple

My goal for 2013:  Stop using the excuse that I have an excuse.

Huh?

To explain, I need to back up in time a couple of months.

At the end of October they kicked me out of out-patient physio.  Said I was doing too well, nothing more they could teach me, everything I was doing I could do on my own.  Well, that's a downer - no one I'm forced to show up for.

Then I got sick .. the knock 'em down, drag 'em out, lasts for weeks, kind of sick. I had the cough from hell (and that's fun with a strained/torn lat muscle), zero energy, focused on going to work and getting rid of the never ending illness.  I quickly figured out that I couldn't go to the gym before work and still make it through the day, so I stopped going to the gym.

Then we went on vacation - spent two weeks in the sun trying to shed the awfulness that was 2012. No gym there.

Then it was the holidays. You know, mad dash run around, family functions, trying to get together with friends, and hey ... it's already the end of December, might as well just wait until the new year to get back to working out.

So, for November and December I hadn't seen the inside of a gym, nor had I been doing anything at home (I OWN a treadmill from my running days ... how pathetic that I didn't even use it). I had also become used to people telling me it was okay to not work out, because, well, "you have a good reason".

That "good reason" is an excuse.

Using it as an excuse is actually doing me more harm than good.  This disability requires that I get into the gym and get a work out if I want to see improvement. My mental health requires that I find some kind of cardio workout to burn off the stress. I'm never going to train my legs to behave normally unless I make them move. I can't control whether or not my nerves heal, but I can control whether or not my legs get enough repetitive motion to retrain themselves.  Walking is proof. You should see me walk now.  I can MOTOR !!  But I've learned how to walk quickly because to survive the rush hour commute in this city, you have to go with the flow. And that flow is FAST.  If you're not motoring, you're doomed.  It was do or die, so I did. The training of the other muscles in my butt, hips and legs is no different.

So I'm back in the gym. I've been walking and doing weights, but I did a spin class on Sunday - first one in five months.  It took some pretty stiff mental discipline to get through the full 55 minutes, my lady bits are killing me today, and the numb legs were kind of weird, but there was improvement.  I have changed since the last class I did - I could sit upright and pedal without holding on and without falling off, my right knee was a lot less crazy, and those fast transitions from sitting to standing were easier.

I'm clawing my way back onto the exercise wagon.  We're like an old married couple, exercise and I.  It's love/hate. We bicker and argue. Sometimes we give each other the silent treatment. But at the end of the day it's comfortable, and it's what I know.

It's 9pm ... past my bedtime, my legs are numb, and I haven't done anything for tomorrow, but the 5:10 am bus beckons in the morning.