Oh hey friends, it’s been a hot minute since the last time we’ve talked. As much as I enjoy blogging and sharing fitness, meal prep, and mental health things with everyone, unfortunately it’s fallen pretty low on my priority list over the past couple months. One of my personal goals for 2018 is to get back on the writing bandwagon. Only took me until February to get around to that… better late than never?
Heading into the end of 2017 and the start of the new year, I had some pretty straight forward goals in mind. Try to maintain my weight (I believe ‘don’t get as fat as last Christmas was the official goal), train my butt off, and enjoy a much earned 2.5 weeks off from work I had planned. There was also lots to get done at my job, but for me work-related craziness and stress tends to come no matter what I do. Seems simple enough, right?
Well… about that. If I’m being totally honest, the past month or so feels like a giant dumpster fire, and I was the dumpster. First thing worth noting is that work has been really busy. I started a new position at the end of August of last year, and to be honest I’m still getting used to the added work and new expectations. I’m working with a great team and have an awesome supervisor, but more often than not I find myself defaulting to always expecting myself to do more. I like to think I hold myself to a fairly high standard when it comes to my work, but I often hold that standard so high that I can burn out. It’s something I’ve always struggled with, and have been trying to work on a lot over the past year, but I’ve still got a ways to go. Either way, I started all of this off already burning the proverbial candle at both ends.
Then, there’s the fitness and health side of it. The weight goal? HA. That went out the window really quickly. I started off the year sitting at 156lbs, which is just below my high of 158lbs at the start of 2017. I ballooned over the holidays and lord do I feel it. I’m super aware of my extra weight, and I despise how I look. Never mind the added pressure I’ve put on myself by having to lose the weight yet again in order to make weight for the 2018 powerlifting season. I always stress a lot about making weight, and I’ve shot myself in the foot by letting it get out of control.
On top of the weight, I’ve been struggling with my mental health more than ever. If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, I’ve talked a bit how my depression has really been running the show lately. Since about October, my mood has been extremely low, I’ve had no motivation to do anything, and most days I struggle to get out of bed. I fixated a lot on how I’m sure that everyone around me hates me, and would just be happier if I disappeared. I spent a lot of time just curled up in bed. My mind was a very scary place to be. It made training difficult, it ruined my vacation time, and it started to eat away at my work. I knew I needed to do something about it, and after dragging my heels I finally got in to see my doctor at the beginning of January. We discussed what had been going on and she agreed that something needed to change, so she prescribed me an anti-depressant.
The past two weeks that I’ve been on these new meds have been really, really tough. I was prepared for some possible side effects, but the one that I really felt was a severe interruption in my sleep. Up until a day or so ago, I was averaging about 3-4 hours of sleep per night. I was a mess. I had to take some time off work, I’ve been in to train all of once, and my diet has been all over the place. (The meds have also been playing games with my appetite as well). Though my mood has definitely been lifted a bit, and my anxiety has calmed way down, I feel like an enormous failure. A calm, not-as-depressed failure. I had all of these grand plans to kick ass and take names in 2018, and so far, I’ve had my ass kicked and handed to me in the first month. It’s really not a fun feeling, and to be honest nursing my bruised ego is just adding to everything.
Oh, there was also a super-uncomfortable attempt at getting an IUD in these fun past couple weeks, because that’s just my luck. My doc couldn’t insert the IUD I’m switching to due to scar tissue from surgery I had last year (to remove a cancer growth), so that made for a super painful and stressful afternoon. Don’t I just have the best luck?
Now that I’ve got all that whining and complaining off my chest, now what? Well, I’ve talked to both my boss and my coaches about the troubles I’ve been having with my meds, which was a great move. All of them were super receptive and willing to help, and we’ve made respective go-forward plans to better handle the next couple weeks. It took some being scared and vulnerable, but after going through that I can definitely say if you’re going through something similar, don’t be scared to talk to the key people around you and try to figure things out. It didn’t solve everything right away, but I at least don’t feel like I’m about to lose my job or my coaches.
So, lovely readers, if anything else I’m getting all of this off my chest so you can hold me accountable. I’m still trying to wrestle with what my goals for the year should be; I’m supposed to compete in May (yikes), I do want to qualify for Worlds again, hopefully something outside of lifting for the year. But concrete goals aside, I want you guys to hold me accountable. Hold me accountable to keep working on what’s important to me, and keep me accountable to sharing that all here. Or at the very least, I can hold myself accountable since I’ve shared it, and y’all can follow along.
So, though I can’t really get a refund of any kind from this year, I can call an unofficial restart to it. Who else is with me?
