Aside from it being weigh-in day today, I decided that today would be Back To Exercise day. Still got the cold, but it's a little bit better every day, and the worst of the coughing seems to be restricting itself to nighttime. Plus I missed Zumba twice in a row and didn't want to miss again! I figured I could back off on the intensity a little bit if I needed to and it would all be fine.
Sooooo... a good idea in theory, but then I got all stupid about it. See, it was a big important weigh-in day today, so I was careful about not eating after supper last night, or drinking very much at all in the morning before weigh-in. That made for a successful weigh-in, seeing as how I overshot my goal by almost a full pound, but I did not do a good job afterwards of refueling. I had breakfast in my bag, but all I ate was a granola bar and a little water. That was not smart! I also hadn't gotten good rest last night, see aforementioned nighttime coughing jags. I really only got a couple of solid hours, and was staggering around in a more than usually zombielike fashion for awhile this morning. Add that to the fact that I am literally still sick and it was a recipe for disaster.
Now if I were a smart person who listened to her body, I would've paid attention to all those warning signs, right? But that's one of my big problems, one of my inertia issues. My body and I have been on the outs for years. I have hated my body since junior high, why should I be good to it? I treat it badly, it works poorly, I punish it with more inattention, and on and on. It literally did not occur to me that I was really unprepared to exercise today. And for awhile, it was okay! I went to Zumba, I danced, I twirled, I shook my groove thang, and every so often I stopped to cough or blow my nose or gulp some water. But then right at the end of the workout, during the cooldowns, I found my heart starting to race when I had to stretch my arms above my head, and I started feeling weird and oogy. We all stuck around a few minutes after class for a raffle, and while we were guessing numbers to win a new pair of pants, the lights started getting all flashy and I knew it was time to sit or fall. I sat, possibly the first smart choice I'd made all day.
It took a minute or two for anybody to notice that I hadn't just decided to take an impromptu time-out in the middle of the dance floor, but then my instructor and some of the other ladies were right there and very concerned. My instructor Karina is a sweetheart, and I think I scared the hell out of her when I mumbled about being dizzy. Luckily, one of my fellow Zumbistas is a nurse, and she sort of took over and got me drinking water and eating little bites of a protein bar, and I started feeling better pretty soon. Everyone was really nice to me, and it was embarrassing but also really nice not to be alone when I felt so bad. A bottle of water and ten minutes of sitting and I was well enough to drive home, whereupon I laid down and took a nap, my second good decision of the day.
By the end of the afternoon I felt totally normal again, but it was a good lesson, delivered by my body in no uncertain terms. I can't just make my body fall in line because I think it ought to work all the time. I have to be good to it, I have to take care of it, and I have to listen to it. Given how badly I've treated it and how heavy and out of shape it is, my body has done yeoman's work the past three months in rising to the challenges of working out and slimming down. When it tells me it's hungry or thirsty, I need to listen. When it tells me it's time to stop, I have to stop. There'll always be another chance to dance tomorrow.
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