The Weak In Rock

My heart absolutely goes out to anyone who is a chronic pain sufferer.  I tweaked my back in mid-May and have been enduring mild but persistent pain (and occasionally severe pain) ever since.  That’s a little less than three months of ouchies and I’m already going batshit.  If my doctor were to tell me today that I could expect to live with this pain for the rest of my life I’m relatively certain I’d develop a chemical dependency pretty quickly.

So, what’s going on, for those who care, is that I’ve got a disk out of alignment in my mid-thoracic spine - basically, right where my rib cage starts.  It originally presented as pain in my my lower lumbar region, but once I got sent to a physical therapist the exercises and stretches he gave me to relieve that pain revealed that the lower back pain was just compensatory pain due to the muscles of my left lower back being overworked due to their efforts to stabilize my spine.  So, what looked like a simple muscle strain has turned out to be more serious, and more difficult to fix.

As a result, I’m doing nothing - thus no postings about health and exercise.  Actually, being inactive is easily as frustrating as being in pain all the time.  I loves me some endorphins, and I’m not getting any, damn it. I can also feel my body getting weaker, which is really pissing me off.

Trying to get in shape?  Not getting anywhere?  I’m willing to bet it’s because you’ve been suckered into believing that if you just work out enough you’ll succeed.  Nope.

Read this article on Nerd Fitness about Staci.  Staci’s story is classic.  She did chronic cardio and restricted her calorie intake.  Sure, she lost weight, but she was weak.  She struggled to lift 5 lb dumbbells.  Then she stopped calorie counting, dropped the chronic cardio and started working on lifting heavy weights.  She also switched to the Paleo diet - getting lots of protein, eliminating processed carbs and grains from her diet.  The transformation is amazing.  Just read the article and look at the photos for yourself.

I’ve said it plenty of times, and I’m sure I’ll say it again - 80% of your plan has to be about what you eat.  The 20% that’s about fitness you can handle based on whatever goal you’re trying to reach.  Personally, I suggest focusing on what you can do physically and not what you look like.  For me it’s about being stronger and faster on my bike and about being able to keep up with my daughter.  I use little metrics - like how fast I can climb a flight of stairs - to constantly check my progress, and bigger metrics, like how long it takes me to climb to the summit of Mt. Diablo on my bike, to see how I’m doing.  I also track the number of chin-ups, pull-ups and push-ups I can do.  Staci tracks the increase in weight she can lift in three key lifts.  Pick something.  It might be as simple as timing your nightly walk around the block and seeing if you can improve on the time.  If you’re into running, time your runs.  If you don’t measure it though, you don’t know if you’re improving or not.

Oh, and take pictures.  You may not notice changes, but the camera does not lie.  I take photos every 30 days, and boy do they help to keep me motivated.