It appears that over the last several days I was suffering from allergies. I thought I might be getting a cold and shut down all exercising for both those days. What resulted was a two pound increase in body weight and rise in blood sugar, but as of this morning my blood sugar has gone down although the body weight remains. One of the things I learned was that my body really did need to rest. Doing both resistance training and cardio at full steam each day was a bit overkill and even though it turns out I was just suffering from allergies I was put out of commission for most of these two days. In other words, I was training a bit too hard without ample time for rest. Rest is the final stage of the work performed. Without it all you end up with is inflammation and frustration. I am starting to think that I should have called this program “Diabesity Challenge” rather than “Diabesity War”.
So it is written. For now on I will refer to this program as “The Diabesity Challenge”. There is a fine line to walk when taking on multiple health changes all at the same time. Between diet, exercise, stress reduction and rest it quickly becomes a balancing act and when just one is off they all become off. In just the one part “Diet”, it also includes periods of intermittent fasting which is not meant so much to do all of the time. Cardio becomes a contest to see if I can progress a little further than I did the day before as the same in strength training. Sometimes the body needs extra rest and skipping a workout is well in order, but when focusing too hard on progress it becomes easy to forget about needed rest. The truth is that this is not a War, but a Challenge.
After three days off I am back to work once again and I am taking one additional day off of working out as I am anticipating a difficult day at work. This will give me 3 full days of rest while I practice taking allergy medication twice a day. I seem to feel much better as the only symptoms left are itchy eyes. If all goes well I resume the workout tomorrow.
The funny thing is that will all of the books I have read about reversing Type II Diabetes and Physical Fitness I should know all about rest. It is well written in every single book I’ve read. The biggest problem I face is my own damn ego.
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Blood Sugar- 102, Body Weight- 185.8
Very true. I’ve learned that my body needs rest as well. For a while I was exercising way too much (and way too strenuously). The end result was that I was probably spiking my stress hormones and was really having a hard time falling asleep at night. I felt way too overstimulated. And of course, when I don’t sleep well my blood sugars start creeping up. I’ve had to learn to take it easy and take a break to let my body repair. Have been enjoying reading your posts. Keep up the great work with your “Diabesity Challenge”. 🙂
Thank you. What’s crazy is I know all of these things but still manage to get myself caught up in the same type of progress I used to perform as a young athlete.
It helps when we remember that we heal when we rest!
It does