Backtracking

Sadly enough, being sick tends to disrupt one’s exercise routine. Combine the lack of exercise regimen with a week of the insatiable desire to carb load, and you have my recipe for weight-loss disaster.

I wonder why I—while others cannot even consider the idea of eating food while ill— I feel the overwhelming urge to shove large amounts of pasta and cheese down my gullet. Perhaps it’s the fact that the Nana used to ease illness with homemade mac and cheese every time I came down sick as a child. I can’t blame the Nana’s mac and cheese obliging for the Girl Scout cookie fetish I presented last week, however.

My thinking is that it was the Girl Scout cookies that really did me in. Curse you, yummy Thin Mints!*

Granted, I hit a bit of a plateau even before being sick. I knew I needed to change something up—in particular my exercise—because I wasn’t really feeling it anymore. Yes, I would get hot and sweaty, yes, I could tell my heart rate has increased, etc, but I just wasn’t working at it. I was bored. It’s hard to change up your exercise routine though when you don’t have a gym membership or a personal trainer or you enjoy the great outdoors, except when it’s 30 freaking degrees outside. I wasn’t making the progress I wanted, but I was waiting to be struck by some exercise inspiration.

Eight days after coming down with the plague, I finally stepped on the scale to gauge the damage. I was up more than two pounds, and had pulled back from my thirty-pounds-lost accomplishment. I hadn’t even had the chance to blog about that one yet. Again, curse you, Girl Scout cookies, with your wonderful philanthropic endeavors and your delicious Tag-Alongs!*

In the past, this type of minor setback would have been more than enough to throw me off the track completely. I’ve thrown in the towel for less. This time, though, the backtracking didn’t hurt, it didn’t give me that stomach-sinking or heart clenching feeling. Even in the moment, while my mind was thinking of how to ease back into a routine and shave those pounds off (again), I was, in the back of my mind, marveling at the fact that I wasn’t sad, angry or even guilty. I was fine.

The setback will be fine as well. I got sick and I over-indulged. It happens. I could blame one thing or the other, but I’ve come to realize that this won’t even be a major speed bump on my path. It’s just a chance to correct my course.

*P.S. I don’t really hate the Girl Scouts. I just have some pent up aggression at the fact that I wasn’t able to be one as a child. The Nana thought their mission could have been much improved by some feministic ideals, fire-building skills, and better-looking smocks. I agree with her now, but that didn’t assuage my feelings at the time.