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Greetings!
I met with my friend Ellie yesterday and she spoke of the summer that had just ended. It was as if the summer, as wonderful and sun-drenched as it had been, had unplugged her from her main battery source; as if the long summer with the kids had yanked the cord on her fitness laptop.
She'd spent the last few weeks operating on her reserve energy, only one red bar left on her willpower screen. She found her fitness connection harder to make and her thighs easier to shake.
But! She's had three "good" days, since Labor Day actually, which is a wonderful time of year to pull yourself up by your own jock strap, if I don't say so or wear one myself.
And the point that she commented on and that I jumped out of my chair to concur with,
is that the third day of any new regime is always the WORST, whether you are exercising or embarking on a diet.
The first day is usually filled with rah-rah determination, sprinkled with sensations of "I've HAD it with myself and dammit I'm ready to make some changes!" that spur you through.
The second day has less sparkle and has lost some of it's romance with fitness slash dieting
but the remnants of conviction remain and those new running shoes still remind you of how much you paid for them and there's still too many veggies in the fridge to rationalize a run to Dairy Queen (which by the way closes after Labor Day, vanishing like that new, best friend you met at summer camp on the very last day, only to have to say "good-bye! I promise to write"but you never do. And that's okay.) The second day is, I won't lie to you, still hard.
But the third day (OMG!)is so difficult. Not only is this the worse day for muscle soreness (DOMS_it's called. Delayed onset muscle soreness-peaks at 24-48 after initial workout)Not only for your body but for your mind.
You mentally have to drag your former self around with you like a wild child in the grocery store that wants a Hershey bar, that's all she wants just one measly Hershey Bar, can't you just give her the damn Hershey Bar and if you just do that one eensy-weensy thing for her, she just wants one bite and P.S. she swears this is the last, final only time- just this one time,
Then
she'll get up off the floor and stop breath-holding and in one transformative breath, brush her sweaty hair back off her face, smile angelically and say,"Thank you, Mommie.I Love You, Mommie".
Even bad moms have the sense to never give in to a wild child (as long as it's not ours, right?)
This is pretty much how day three goes.
But Day Four is break through day. Everyone says it. If you can string together four days then you will get to a better place, a thinner, more benevolent, less primitive place.
You will have some momentum and your wild child will surrender slightly. You won't be as hungry after four days. Your muscle soreness will go away, I promise.
So make a Four Day plan. Remember my words about the struggles of Day Two and be braced for Day Three. If you are lucky it will pass over, like Hurricane Gustav, but even if you didn't need the verbal battening of the hatches, you will be relieved when it's passed by or been down-graded to a level two.
If Day Three actually does turn out to be a Class Four Dieting Hurricane, say to yourself,
"Everyone struggles on the third day. Everyone.
Even J-Lo."
Get four days behind you. That's only 96 hours.
Speaking of getting four days behind you, I also recommend not worrying about what is beyond four days AHEAD.
I'm reminded of a special moment this morning.
I hadn't ridden my bike all summer so in some inverse, wait-til-the-last-minute kinda style that I am infamous for, I've been biking all around town since summer ended on Monday. As I was cruising through our local park, who did I spot gallivanting across a flower strewn field but my friend Karen Newman, who many of you know as a wonderful neighborhood gal who just so happens to have stage three cancer.
She was with her two athletic friends and they were laughing and, well, all I can say is that they really were gallivanting.
I was riding on a road that curved around the field where they walked. I shouted out to them and they turned to wave. When they saw it was me, Karen froze in her tracks and lit up like I was Brad Pitt.(I actually looked around to see if maybe Brad was unexpectedly nearby)But no. It was me she was beaming at.
She raised her hand to shade her eyes and she started waving.
I mean, not just the "oh hey, I know you" wave, but a big-league wave.
With one hand at her brow she raised her other arm and she did that slow motion wave.
The one reserved for when all the people you love most in the world are departing on a cruise ship and you are standing at the pier and have been appointed head of the send-off committee.
As I biked around the curve-we were going in slow-mo now- Karen kept up her dreamy,crazy waving and she pivoted on her feet in little mini steps like a ballerina on top of a jewelry box, just so she could
KEEP
WAVING.
At the last moment before I biked out of sight, she yelled "Have a WONDERFUL day, Cookie!" And she meant it. And I am doing it
just because she inspired me too.
Now. Some moments have this magic, slow-mo quality. It's been called turning on the eyeballs.
I love when it happens.
But as I get older and when it does happen, I often later reflect on the conditions that proceeded the magic to see if I can discern how to replicate it.
And the only thing I can come up with is that it happens when we are fully tethered to the present moment. And illness can have that effect, as well as chronic pain or preparing to send your kids off to college for the first time. Time takes on a tenuous, silky smooth timbre.
I know that Karen was focusing on where her feet were at that given moment. She's always had a gift for that, but now, she is likely to climb up onto the picnic table and stand amongst the coleslaw to say grace. And those of us around her, we all find ourselves spilling the baked beans to climb up there too!
Mostly, I think, from my humble vantage point,
one diagnosis and four galaxies away, she's not lamenting about what will happen beyond four days from now.
What good does that do?
Not to mention that it robs her of THIS VERY MOMENT
Where magic can happen and our eyeballs can turn on. Not to mention healing.
She is savoring every moment.
Her life was pretty fabulous before. Very healthy, an Olympic caliber triathlete, a nutritionist, married to her soul mate with three exceptional sons. Her life has been a cross between a Hallmark card and a Norman Rockwell painting.
But since her diagnosis last spring, it has been a phase as if she has been swimming through a dark cave.
You don't appreciate surfacing
until you've come through the darkness. Everything takes on a very high volume sweetness.
So thank you for the perspective, Karen.
If you can savor every moment
and make every day a genuinely wonderful day,
then getting through four days for the rest of us suddenly doesn't seem so doggone hard.
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Penny Hoff
Penny Hoff's Workout World |
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