What’s the difference in an excuse & good reason to rest?– You’re your only ju
More often than not, I struggle with when to take a little extra rest and when to push through fatigue, obstacles, issues, etc. On one hand, we’re a pretty lazy society- right? We spend way too much time sitting; now they’re saying sitting is the new smoking! I say as I sit on the couch… but anyways, I feel like I’m constantly battling just overcoming being lazy most of the time. And I do a pretty good job at it! I mean, Rhett keeps me jumping up throughout the day to get him out of whatever mess he’s gotten himself into, and I’m pretty consistent with my activity these days. It’s not the daily battle of being active that I struggle with, it’s when to be ok with resting.
When I was pregnant, it was everywhere that I should be resting like all the time. Growing a human is hard, take a nap, they said. Well, heck yeah! I napped a lot. I rested a lot. I slept in. I had days where I only left the couch to pee 10,000 times. But it’s tough to know when you’re just being lazy and using pregnancy as an excuse and actually doing the best you can.
Those feelings are recurring in me now as I’m weaning from the pump. My body is struggling to say the least… I didn’t expect this to be as uncomfortable or difficult as it is right now, and it’s catching me off guard. I already feel like I’m on some sort of hormonal roller coaster from hell, and my body is fighting me. I know that if I can do this right and just take the several days (weeks?!) that it takes to be weaned and no longer lactating, that I’ll be thankful that I didn’t actually drag the process out unnecessarily, but I’m torn. I ran Sunday morning after my final pumping session because obviously my body was a little more comfortable after I pumped. Now, it’s Wednesday, and I can’t help but feel a little panicky in that I can’t fathom a run with this lovely engorgement issue going on. No amount of cabbage leaves could make me want to run like this.
ANYWAYS- it’s all TMI, I know! But all this is to say, only I can judge whether I should push through or not. The whole listen to your body thing is great and true and wonderful, but no one’s body is ever actually that clear. Like if I listened to my body all the time, I’d only eat chocolate and Chick-fil-A and every run would end around .7 mile! So sometimes, don’t listen to your body. It’s a liar and wants to conserve all the calories and it wants all the comfort foods. DUH! It’s job is survival and it can’t possibly understand me choosing to run 26.2 miles– it thinks I’m running for my life. But at the end of the day, it isn’t everyone else you have to answer to about whether you took a little extra rest or not, it’s your body. No one else is going to feel it, so it’s important you stay in touch with how you’re feeling. Are you having a particularly difficult week? Are you sick? Are you sleep deprived? Are you weaning from exclusively pumping/feeling like you might explode? Every single day, there’s probably going to be a reason that could keep you from exercising or running or eating right, but every day, you have to choose whether something will be an excuse or good reason to rest. There’s never a right answer except the one that you feel good about.
