When the fit girl falls

No amount of cliche gym quotes could be plastered on my wall or motivational speeches played to get me out of what seems to be a fitness slump. Brené Brown says it best, "Vulnerability is basically uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure." So here I am, going to emotionally expose myself. Welcome to the show!

I don't want to to discount my overall health. I think I'm in good shape. Who knows? I haven't been to a doctor in a minute, but I haven't had any "red flags," if you will. My heart is still beating, my legs are carrying me, and I FINALLY found a thermometer and my temperature has been in check. While all this is nice, and something to take into daily gratitude, it doesn't fix the fact that I am fairly certain my fitness routine got left back in St. Louis when I visited in March.

Let's backtrack to December, when I moved to Lufkin. I was worried I wouldn't be able to get into a fitness routine or find a recreational soccer group. I still haven't found a soccer team, and I think that's some of my problem. In college, to KC, and back to St. Louis, I was fortunate enough to have great groups of people to have nightly pick up games of soccer with. I would always look forward to 6 p.m. because I knew I could go and run off whatever was on my mind, laugh, and be with people. We were a team. I've always had teams wherever I went, until now, kind of. I've got a great group of co-workers but being at a bureau and now everyone working from home, if I'm being honest, I've been struggling. I feel a lack of community.

Anyway, I knew one of the first things I was going to need was a gym membership. With it being winter, nightfall was practically 4 p.m. and I wasn't getting off anytime before that. So I got a membership at Planet Fitness. After going through the intimidation phase, I realized no one cares what you're doing and if they do, they're focusing on the wrong thing. I went back in my memory bank to physical therapy sessions and how I used some of the equipment and was able to create my routine. After a few weeks, I was upping milage, weight, and overall feeling great (Dr. Seuss is that you?!) My "soccer legs" were coming back and I felt strong, both physically and mentally.

But when things get good, sometimes they can crash with little notice. Coronavirus forced the gym, along with everything else, to close their doors, I got worried. Luckily by this time the sun was still shining past 7 p.m. and I could get a nice run in.

As the weeks have passed my motivation, fitness and meal routines have been sinking, and I'm going down with them. I've gotten to the point where my mornings are pretty good and I feel like I'm eating intentionally.

This is so important to me because of the full day of work ahead of me. But what about the part of life that's not my job? I need to get that figured out. Some days I'll have lunch, other days it's crackers. Dinner? What a toss up. Some nights I'm like, 'Hell yeah, we are Martha Stewart and we are eating well.' Other nights I'm too tired to make or eat anything. I'll either snack or eat nothing at all. It's so unhealthy.

This all impacts my physical fitness because if I'm not hydrated and don't have the energy, the workout will be a full struggle, and as you can imagine the mental health falls too. I think that's what happened tonight and I just lost it. I was pissed at myself. I went out for a run, which I've been doing on and off. Again, the routine is gone. I had a nice first mile. About midway through the second I felt like I was going to throw up. This just doesn't happen to me, and if it does I push through because it's one run and a walking or early finish leaves me disappointed. I have always been blessed to be a good athlete (take a glance up at that photo...and to think I felt out of shape some days looking like that). I grew up playing soccer, ran track, and cross country. Again, I think it was the team atmosphere. I had people to work for, I had people rooting for me. Now, I'll literally be coaching myself out loud, on the treadmill at the gym, or through the trails.

"Erin, PUSH. Dig deeper. Run for those who can't. FIND A WAY."

These mottos work some days, but they didn't work tonight and the disappointment I walked back to car with was probably radiating off my face. I've felt myself hitting a wall and tonight I ran right into it and got thrown back a good 50 feet. So I'm not entirely sure what's next. I think I have to remember what this feels like, to feel physically low, and not want to go any further down. It's just getting at it everyday for a little bit of time. Again, I'm not used to a little bit of time. I am used to two and three hours of soccer every night.

But I got a jump rope and some ab roller thing (it's hard!). I'm hoping if I dedicate 10-15 minutes a day with those two things, run when I can, and eat healthier, maybe I can get back to feeling good about myself.

I'm all for self-love as you are or whatever, but for me, that's just not working. I'm not going to eat like shit for a week and blame it on quarantine, absolutely the hell not. I'm taking control of what I can, when a lot of other things feel so far from my control, and I am going to be okay.

Say that out loud, "I am going to be okay." Say it until you feel it.

If you've been feeling down in any aspect of life and you need to talk about it, as alway, please send me a message. Let's get some honest and vulnerable conversations going. Let's face our fears head on and always lean into courage.

-E