Overcoming my latest obstacle

Last week, I ran two 5ks within days of each other. My first was Thursday evening and my second was Saturday morning. The race on Thursday went well, it was very hot but I still ran every single step. I used Friday as a lighter day for exercising.  After a short walk on Friday, I noticed a blister was starting to form on my heel. After that walk, I changed my shoes, biked a few miles and then swam. After the swim, I tried my best to get rid of my blister ASAP since I had a 5k the next morning. The blister wasn’t gone by morning, but I still wanted to run. I covered my blister with bandages and prepared for the race. I ran the race, ignoring the pain of the blood blister. After the race, I removed my running shoes as soon as I was able to and noticed the blister doubled in size.

*Picture below was taken after the 5k on Saturday. And yes, my shirt does say "Never Stop" ;)

I’ve been trying to speed up the healing process with Epsom Salt foot baths so it could heal ASAP and I can get back to my normal exercise routine. After doing research, I realized it would take about a week or so to get rid of. So, backless shoes for a while. Once I realized the blood blister would take about a week, I instantly became nervous about working out and eating healthy this upcoming week. I immediately thought that this would be a week without any exercise, also resulting in a week of bad eating habits. On the days I don’t exercise, I have a very hard time continuing to eat healthy. Usually on those days, I start the day off well, but after dinner I start snacking and the snacking continues until way late into the evening.

During these “fat attacks” I tell myself that you are limited to eating what is already in the house, because if I left the house, I would, most likely, buy baked goods or fast food and just let my cravings get the best of me, only to instantly regret it. Needless to say, limiting my “fat attack” to what's in the house is the best alternative. Recently my “fat attacks” have included eating a whole package of baked green beans, Greek yogurt, pretzels, granola bars or cheese. Not as unhealthy as I was used to eating, nevertheless I do not to need to pile on the calories right before bed. Usually I can talk myself out of the cravings, but on days I don’t exercise it’s very difficult. During those cravings, I go back to thinking that I can just restart the next day. When these thoughts come into my mind, I tell myself that if you quit on your diet, you’re just quitting on yourself. Yes, you can restart tomorrow, but what about all the progress you had already today. Are you going to throw that away to eat something that you can wait until the morning to have?

So, you can see why I started to panic after thinking that this would be 1 entire week without exercise. Lucky for me, I thought of some alternatives to the normal exercise routine that won’t involve wearing shoes, such as swimming, biking, workout DVDs, and of course using weights. I’ll need to watch my eating more closely since my workouts won’t be at the intensity they normally are.

I hate to think I caused this blister to happen by not properly taking care of feet. I now know that I need to be better about that in the future. I’ve researched a few ideas that hopefully in the future will prevent more blisters from occurring. For now, I need to stay focused on trying to help this blister to heal so I can lace up my running shoes sooner rather than later. I also need to not rush the healing process because I don’t want to make it worse. And, I shouldn’t completely rule out races at the end of the week because I still could do it, that is if my blister is gone by then, because running with it in the first place was a bad idea.

On the positive side, I felt like I’ve been stuck in a rut with exercising. Usually I do the same activities. I've been wanting to start swimming more, so yesterday I kicked of the week of shoeless workouts by swimming. I ended up swimming 100 laps. My goal for the week is 300 laps. I initially set the goal of 250 laps, but I bumped it up because I knew I could to do more.

I’m going to turn this week into an obstacle that I will overcome and I will prove to myself that you can still workout, exercise and lose weight no matter what the conditions. I’m not totally giving up on running, I’ll get back to it as soon as I can. I don’t like when something interrupts my scheduled routines, but this is an obstacle that I will overcome. I’m determined to keep going. This will not be a slack week and I will not give in to my “fat attacks”. I will continue to exercise and eat healthy this week. I will prove to myself that you can change it up and it’ll be okay. Stay focused on the goals at hand, don’t give into temptations, and most importantly take care of yourself.