Today's post - it is a public spewing of confessional thoughts about living a fairly devout eat clean/train hard type life this past summer. Safe to say...this summer I saw the best my body has ever been in my whole life...at the age of 44...4 months shy of 45 mind you. I say that not in an obnoxious way but in an "i'm proud, its never too late" way. Over the past spring and summer months i dedicated myself to working out approx 4 times a week with a run thrown in for good measure here and there and ate clean for the most part. I gained MUSCLE and was the strongest i'd ever been. Doing 60lbs on a lat pull down is a lot of a 4'11 97 lb woman. Doing 135 lbs on the leg press is too.
I "felt" like superwoman.
In addition to that, and working my "day job" 40 hours a week I decided to take on training people in my "spare" time. So a total 3-4 clients in addition to my own training and working my usual schedule.
Add to that trying to have a life with the man i love and trying to figure out how to just hurry up and move forward as a personal trainer and you've got a recipe for either one or two things...1) incredible success or 2) implosion.
I'd LOVE to tell you success. I'd love to tell you "I'm NUMBER 1 all the way!". But I can't. For some...a non-stop, crazy train pace is the only way to live. Their immune systems, nervous systems, digestive systems all take on the stress of the increased pace of life and adjust accordingly, adapting and allowing the pace to increase.
I don't have that. When I take on too much, no matter how positive it is...the body at some point breaks down. It isn't the physical body that is under physical stress because physically, as i said, this past spring and summer I worked at being the strongest, fittest, fastest and healthiest I've been ever in my whole life. But mentally...i was burning out. But telling myself "go go go". Because to stop or slow down would be failure. Or maybe self sabotage. Or fear. Or "putting on the brakes". All things I used to do when I started to have success in my acting career a million years ago.
But now, at the ripe ole age of 44...I realize this is just how i'm designed. While on vacation in Vegas I started to get sick...not enough to ruin my trip (quite the opposite...the dry dessert air, the warm sun, the mountains...i fell in love)...but the breakdown had begun then a couple weeks ago. And then last week when I should have been back in the gym after only a week away, I battled with some major digestive problems that have left me weak with unexpected or unintended weight loss. Only two weeks away from the gym and I'm feeling like a shell of who I was two plus weeks ago.
And that's why there is this post...i'm human.It is easy to feel like I was being super woman...going after my dreams, pushing myself, helping to push others...blocking out every available moment of my life with some sort of activity, job or "thing" that needed to get done.
But i can't live that way. Because my nervous system isn't designed for it. I need downtime, i can't work a 40 hour a week job AND train clients. Some people can, but I can't. It's too much for me - to live the life i have now and simultaneously work on designing a new one. And another thing that happened - while in the desert, coaching a dear friend on how to kick off a healthier lifestyle and how to approach a customized way to her Couch to 5K program...i realized I want to do more than be a trainer. I want to guide and coach people, i want to learn the psychology of living a healthier life. Why we do and don't make choices and how those choices impact us down to the root of who we are. I want to learn about nutrition..good Lord...of all the people on the planet...I NEED to understand nutrition for myself.
I want a long term career and I don't want to spend days counting my clients through reps. Yes, the PT certification is a huge bonus and yes, i'll probably still train down the line but my eyes are set on a bigger career shift. I don't want to wing my future...I want to plan for it. I want to invest "spare" time in my education so that a few years from now I have some sort of weight to what I can offer people in those specific areas.
I do know I want to continue to coach as a running coach, specifically beginner runners because that is part of how my life changed so drastically. And I want other people to feel empowered...running, even getting out and walking a few miles, CAN do that.
On top of all this, just plain ole regular life has brought some unexpected stress to the table but luckily i've begun training for my November 2nd Half Marathon...and running, as the saying goes, is cheaper than therapy - so now you'll find me in my gym twice a week, rebuilding lost muscle (so sad!) and running 3 days a week in training.
Some part of me thinks this is me backing off of my dreams...but the older, wiser side of me that I'm rapidly getting in touch with sees the pattern. I'm not designed to be superwoman. I'm not. I'm dare I say..."delicate" in some ways.
I have loved training my clients, I have loved seeing them feel empowered by picking up some metal and finding their strong. To put to rest the fear of "looking like a man" because they picked up some free weights. I won't totally relinquish that part of my passion, I can't. But I've got to take care of myself and my future for the long haul. I'm not 25 or even 35, I don't want to fly by the seat of my pants anymore.
I want a future. I want to plan it out. Not every last detail (God no! Boring! And impossible!)...but a general idea of where this life of mine is going. So although I've loved the immediate gratification of just getting out there and go, go, go...my body, mind and heart are telling me something different now.And I have to listen.
In the meantime...this happened today ---->
And it felt good. I felt fairly strong considering I'm just getting over being so sick last week. Nothing has worked better for bringing me back as a strong runner than weight training...so the two for me will always and shall always go hand in hand.
find your strong...
Rachel
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