My Progress

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Life getting in the way

I haven't been making daily entries recently. I made a good push for it last month, but lost steam in the end. Now I'm doing every other day, and I feel like that is slacking. It's quite an improvement from last year's 1 post every other week, though.

Yesterday, I skipped my workout. It was not a great day. I kinda dragged some ass getting ready and was running behind on my way to the lab. I swear I wasn't driving any differently than normal, but I and 2 other people got pulled over on the same steep-graded downhill slope. 60 in a 45. Feh. I guess I'm gonna have to send this one off to a lawyer because I don't wanna pay for it over the next three years in premiums.

I spent a lot of time processing some bacteria for cold storage. I mean a lot of time. From 1pm to 5.30, I was doing nothing but pipetting, mixing, labelling over and over and over. I still have some more dilutions to do today. These are the tedious, boring parts of science you don't hear about. Sitting on my ass, mindless work, nothing to do but develop repetitive stress disorder and stew over the citation earlier. I hadn't even realized it was an hour past my usual time to close shop and I still needed to put things away, clean up my benchtop and document in my lab book.

Knowing that I had to get home, eat dinner and work on my thesis last night, there was no way I was going to have time to work out as well. I've talked to my program director about this a few times, but I feel like the hour of commuting, hour of workouts and 9 hour shifts are wearing me down a bit more than I'd expected. I am not putting in much time at all in the evenings like I should, and while I should also be using my Fridays (when I have scientific writing in the morning and the remainder of the day off) to work on this thesis, I've gone into the lab the last two Fridays in a row to get some extra work in on my project there. That's OK though, because I still have my weekends right? Nope. I spend all of Saturday going to the morning meeting, enjoying my time with my girlfriend, reading blogs and WW forums, shopping, stocking up on groceries, date night.... Sunday is my decompression day, the only day of the week I don't have to run there, do that, get that done, hurry!

So, I guess I need to re-evaluate my priorities, make room for the thesis and whatnot. I could stop working out every day, but the guilt and fear inside me from skipping yesterday's was not something I want to deal with every week. I love how I feel when I'm working out regularly. Consequently, I hate how I feel when I'm not. For the first time in my life, my health is my number one priority. I just need to find a way to balance it all out.

It's kind of nice to think that my dedication to weight loss and fitness is this firm. It's also nice to realize that a couple of years ago laziness and depression were holding me back from success in school and now my fitness has elbowed its way into my active and successful academic career.

4 comments:

H.E.A. said...

Balance can be tough to find. Especially when you're doing work/school....ESPECIALLY when you're writing that giant thesis ( I am currently in slacker mode on that as well...).

Good luck. I agree that cutting back on workouts will only stress you out more. You can find the balance. It just may take some time :)

twinkelydots said...

Sleeping is SOOOO overrated! LOL

It is hard to find a balance. The good news is that you're recognizing this early on and will be able to figure out your priorities.

And whoever decided that weekends were meant for relaxing was never a grad student.

Kimberly said...

I know that I feel so much better when I have a consistent exercise routine.

Don't make that a secondary priority. It is important for you because it affects your entire life. I know you want balance, but in the end it is going to cost you more than you gain.

Dina said...

I think it's great how far you've come in a year. Glad to hear you're making your health your top priority :)