How best to heal exercise-related injuries? My body decided that I should catch a big, stinkin' head cold. That way, if my exercise guilt got the best of me, I wouldn't be able to breathe through a workout.
Smart, eh?
This has been the extent of my physical activity this week.
So I'm sitting on my can, blowing my nose and re-evaluating my workout choices.
I've been jogging once or twice a week with absolutely no issues, plus doing various strength, yoga and aerobics DVDs the rest of the week.
But three weeks into my weekly Zumba class, my left shoulder ached, my left elbow burned and my right knee feels like someone wrung it out like a wet sock.
Yes, I'm wearing the right shoes and the Zumba class is on a smooth surface. But I dance like nobody's business and tend to fling limbs with abandon.
(Can you get Zumba Elbow?)
I haven't done anything active since the weekend, which was 20,000 steps at Universal Florida and mini golf the next day, and all the wonky parts are feeling better.
But I'm bummed, because I really like Zumba. Perhaps I like it too much.
But all is not Sudafed and moping -- I actually lost 4 freakin' pounds this past week. QVC had a sale on a Nutrisystem Weekends Off plan and I bought it. I've been trying to "automate" my meals anyway with a lot of healthy no-brainers like smoothies and protein bars, and Nutrisystem has come a long way in the quality of its food, even including a daily whey protein shake to the plan to pump up the protein.
Nice thing about weekends off is that on the weekends, I'm not really off off. But if there's something I want during the week that's not on the plan, I say to myself "fit it in on the weekend."
This feels do-able, for the first time in a long time.
I like the idea of "not right now." In fact, there's a blog post that I frequently refer back to year after year, from The Skinny Daily Post. There are so many quotable passages from this post but I'll leave you with this:
When it’s always available, choosing not to have it right now is just a choice.