My Journey With Health And Fitness – I Need To Stop Obsessing

Yesterday was a beautiful day and I was excited because it meant I could try doing a run down to the beach. As a matter of fact at around 9:30am my sister asked if I was going to do a run and I said I planned to hit the road by 10am. Then at 9:50am I got a text asking where I was. I suddenly realized that it was Monday which is the day I lead my seniors’ walking group and usually I meet with them for coffee at 9:30am. Fortunately I was already prepped for going on a run so I just grabbed the stuff I needed and rushed to the coffee shop with my husband who apparently had also completely lost track of the fact it was Monday. That is just how my day started and it was about to go south from there.

I have a bad tendency of thinking I can do it all. That means I tend to overbook my day and in this case it is the entire week. Yesterday after I had done the walk with the seniors I was booked to start the Community Volunteer Income Tax Clinic for the afternoon. Last year I had recommended that the first day that volunteers are only given 1/2 a normal client load so that they had an hour for each client rather than the standard 1/2 hour. This is because there are often many glitches that happen with the system on that first day and there can be numerous calls to support desks. Unfortunately yesterday I had 9 clients booked between noon and 4pm and just as I expected there were all sorts of issues which had me frantically scrambling to put out fires and somehow keep to the schedule I was assigned.

Before I did the income tax clinic I had done an hour on the treadmill and of course an hour with the seniors. And, I still managed to get my strength training done. There was also the afternoon volunteer dog walking. However, I normally would have done another walk after dinner but I also had a Zoom meeting to attend. I finally had to acknowledge I just couldn’t get it all done.

That is where the obsessing came in. When I realized I wasn’t going to get in my last walk I started looking at my Fitbit app. I had only done 20k steps instead of the normal 30k goal, I would be about 5km short of my daily goal and my calories burned would be down several hundred. I spent some time staring at my Fitbit app and realized I have got to stop doing this to myself.

First of all, this was 1 day, not going back to a week of being behind. Moreover, I had done some extra walking on Sunday as it was such a nice day I felt a walk along the beach was in order. The past couple weeks I had worked so hard that it just wasn’t worth beating myself up because I had still done some good exercise. So, I put the Fitbit app away and just kept on with the rest of my evening.

Today is a new day and because I am again really overbooked I was up at 3:45am on on the treadmill by 4:30am. Strength exercises got completed before 8am and then it was on to a lovely 7k run down at the beach. It all made me stop fixating on what I hadn’t done yesterday but rather focus on what I am going to be able to accomplish today.

Oh, and the rest of the week is completely filled but I am just going to do my best and try to finish the week feeling strong and with sense of accomplishment.