Stress….

Dr. Jack:  Time to focus on you!

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……. I read that message at least five hundred times in the last few days.

People think I am doing this whole plan sooo perfectly, but the truth is that it is all a learning experience.  And I am far from done learning.  A lifetime of doing things incorrectly takes a bit to relearn.

Anyway…..time to focus on you!  That’s the key to the whole thing…  a fact I have learned the hard way.

I keep reading it over and over. Thinking…..  and if I want to lay blame for not taking care of myself,  in all ways, I really don’t need to look any farther than the bathroom mirror and who I am staring at.  The circumstances aren’t my fault,  but how i handled it, definitely is my fault.

Last week was an exceptionally tough week.  I keep telling myself that trying to make myself feel better.  But, actually things have been a  tough for awhile. The stress has been building and gaining momentum.  But last week, it just seemed as though it all came to a point.  I was getting the business everywhere I turned.  And I am not all that great at handling it.  The truth is I am terrible at handling it.   The details are irrelevant, and I don’t feel comfortable saying it all.  Stress……..   We all have those weeks, those months.

All of what’s going on boils  down to stress.  Job stress, emotional stress, burning the candle at both ends and around the middle.  Pushing, pushing, pushing….  taxing out our bodies as far as they can possibly go and then still demanding more.  And the  eveventually, it gives in and we wonder why.

I have a great eating plan.  It’s a superior plan of eating awesome healthy food,  accompanied by superior supplements that keep me healthy.  But I am expecting those poor little supplements to do a job without any effort or support on my part to help.  They can’t do it all. They are not the whole picture.  And if you want to be successful, which I do  then I need to help.

So what am I doing that’s not helping? There isn’t enough paper to write that.  But as examples…… Do I sleep enough?  Absolutely not.  Now in my defense, some of that I can’t help.  I do work two jobs, and it’s hard to sleep enough.  But I am not taking time between jobs to just sit down and rest a little.   Do I find things to relax and destress? (Insert laughing). Ummm.   No…. Movie?  Read a book? Make something creative?  Coffee or lunch with a friend?   Watch tv?  And after awhile you pay the price for that.  The price came this weekend.

I have been soooooooo. careful about what I ate, and kept to the plan, but Saturday  morning I hop on the bathroom scale which is up a smidge.   Why? Because stress weighs.   It really does.   You start stressing about a million things, and then you aren’t sleeping.  Suddenly your body is producing a ton of cortisol, and then you are storing fat, not burning it.   You don’t have to eat poorly, it’s going to happen because that is how the body works, and mine rocks at it!  It fights back.  And by now, I should have known that.

I have had a ton of pride in my illness free year! But Saturday night, my immune system decided it was going to remind me that I am not helping the situation.  I woke up in the middle of the night feeling a little fevered.  I drank some water and went back to bed, thinking I was just warm, and Sunday I woke up and I felt yuckkkkkkk…. We had an open house at school, and as soon as it was over  I went home and to bed.  And I pretty much stayed there until this morning. I was fevered for hours and just kept thinking about Dr. Jack and how he has told me a million times that I need to not let stress get to me.   I still feel a little “off,” today, but better.

I had been talking to Dr. Jack for months about the stress in my life.  And he kept telling me that I needed to deal with that.  I needed to figure out new ways of dealing.   That what I was doing was not changing the situation.  I need different ways of handling it.    I heard him, but I thought I was doing such a great job handling it all. After all, everyone has it?  Am I dealing with it any worse than them?  I can juggle a million balls in the air.   Apparently my immune system did not agree and it decided to fight back.

Stress weighs in every way you can imagine. It taxes your immunity. It has made my weight loss pretty stagnant, and it has taxed every area of my body.  I let way too much get under my skin.  Always have. I am one of those people.  Way toooooooooo much gets under my skin. And that really is very unhealthy.   Can I stop? I have lived a lifetime being this way, but  I have to stop.  The quality of my life depends on my ability to fix this and I have to. It’s put up,or shut up time.

Stress,  as I learned from Dr. Jack, on the first week we met comes ina variety of forms.   It can be physical, chemical or emotional stress and they all take their toll.

So what am I going to do about it?  Well, for starters I need a better defense system and I don’t mean physically.  I have to find a better balance of life.  I am great at work, not so good at fun activities or relaxation.  I need to detox the negative people and their comments out of my mind.  I need to learn to leave work in its own place and not carry its pressures everywhere with me.  I have to stop getting in my own way.  I have to stop expecting sooooo much more from myself than I would anyone else.  I have to start demanding that I take time for myself.  I have to take time and focus on me.   It really is that simple phrase that he used.

The hardest one for me to accomplish?   I need to stop letting the comments of others get under my skin.  I need to not take their words to heart.   It’s their opinion, not necessarily what is true.

Wish me luck on that… it’s going to take a bit of practice. I think I will start by watching Dr. Jack’s webinar tonight.   Might just be what I need…. get back to the basics… restart…all ducks lined up…

As I told Dr. Jack… when it comes to learning I am a turtle.     Luckily for me, I have the best teacher in the world who doesn’t give up so easily on slow learners.

Hugs,

Chris