This is a great note from Lisa Ellington, one of our members at Vitality. She took the words right out of my mouth! With anything in life, with any decision, you will be pulled to the path of least resistance. As it relates to working out, your mind will try and convince you that “it's ok” to take some time off and “focus” on work or something outside the gym…..Read below and take Lisa's advice, don't say no one warned you about the consequences of taking some time away from your health!
Keep Moving. Seriously. Take my advice.
I've been Crossfitting about a year an a half. 3-4x a week pretty consistently and love it. For the past year I've been on what I call the paleo rollercoaster, strict sometimes, completely off sometimes, mostly on the fence. I just turned 40. I have kids, I'm married. I run my own marketing and design firm. I have a lot going on — just like most of us.
Earlier this year I hurt my shoulder and modified my workouts. Then I started cutting out on my workouts using my age or my lack of my goals as an excuse not to work as hard. “I'm not training for anything”. “I'm about to go on vacation.” Then I went on vacation. Now here I am, and I am weaker. I'm worn out. I feel like the year and a half I spent working has been wasted because a few months of laziness. I know that isn't true and I will recover quicker because of the time I have put in the box but it will take a few weeks — and that stinks!
Over the past few months of rollercoaster paleo and vacation eating, I've also put on 10 pounds of fat. It truly sucks. Do you know how long it took me to take that 10 pounds off?
Don't be like me! Don't take those few weeks to recover. You don't want to have to take that month or two to re-lose that 10 pounds again! Please don't let your mind play those tricks on you — that you DESERVE to rest, you EARNED it, that's garbage! You DESERVE to be healthy! You DESERVE to be FIT! Keep moving. Keep active. DO rest, but don't rest too long! Keep a goal in mind. Trust me, its not worth it. Keep moving, its worth it!
Lisa