Whole 30: Day 9 – Be Resilient
If there is one characteristic I would choose as essential to pursuing a holistically healthy lifestyle, resilience would be at the top of my list.
Resilience is the act of overcoming setbacks and the ability to recover quickly from difficulties (Oxford Dictionary). No matter how well you plan your meals, aim to sleep 7-9 hours a night, or make arrangements to have your children watched so you can go to the gym, life will present obstacles that may prevent you from reaching a particular health goal you had for yourself that day, that week, that month, and even that year.
When these obstacles arise, we have two choices: to fight or to flee. We can either choose to overcome that obstacle or we can choose to just give up and stop pursuing a healthy life. There have been many days these last few years I’ve asked myself “Why should I continue to eat well? Why should I keep working out? Am I getting anywhere with this?”
It’s in those moments I MUST remind myself of how far I’ve come on this health journey, and honestly, how God has used this journey to inspire and influence others. When I remember this, I’m encouraged to keep going and remember the victories I’ve had in the areas of health. I’m encouraged to never give up.
So, here are some common obstacles I have faced and you might face and how to overcome them:
- You forgot to take out our frozen meat, so there’s no time or it to thaw out, leaving us with no meat for dinner: Maybe pick up a roasted chicken from the store, or whip together some eggs as a source of protein for dinner
- It’s raining and you can’t go for our run outside: Do some body weight exercises inside! Pushups, situps, squats, burpees, lunges and jumping jacks are all great exercises that you can do in the comfort of your own home.
- Situations arose where you didn’t sleep enough during the week: Catch up on your Zzz’s over the weekend. No week is perfect and sleep won’t always be perfect. But the key is to see sleep as a priority, and to let your body get the rest it needs when you can.
- You injured a part of your body and are afraid to go to your workout class: Let your coach/instructor know about your injury and ask if there are substitutes for the planned exercises. Don’t give up! The focus is on giving your body the movement and challenge it needs, not necessarily doing all the exercises everyone else is doing.
- You’ve done a food/fitness challenge and didn’t get all the results you wanted: This common for a lot of us as change can take time and depends on many factors. We must have more than physical or scale victories in this pursuit of health. As Whole 30 would describe it, we need to make sure we are celebrating non-scale victories such as: better energy levels, clearer skin, cravings for something health instead of something unhealthy, learning how to cook delicious meals, incorporating more vegetables into your diet, learning to focus on those around you instead of the food, taking time for yourself by getting a massage, etc. These are victories and worth celebrating! I encourage you to take inventory each week and see what is one thing you can celebrate on this health journey.
This post was inspired by the fact that last night, using my awesome new set of knives my friends got me for my birthday, I accidentally sliced my finger. The cut was pretty deep and Tomy and I were wondering if I had to get stiches (well mainly Tomy, I pretty much scared him to death). We went to the pharmacy nearby where the pharmacists applied peroxide and anointment to it, and told us how to treat it here on out (no stiches were mentioned). Last night I was then faced with a choice – should I go to the gym tomorrow? After viewing the workout for the next day, I saw that there were some things I could do which would not irritate my finger, but that there was one exercise in particular that I would definitely have to sub out (pullups, there’s no way my thumb could grip the bar).
Without a hesitation, I packed my gym bag and said “Yes, I’m going tomorrow” because I knew that I could sub out pullups on the bar for ring-rows/pulls. Although pullups are one of my weaker exercises that I really wanted to work on during Whole 30, I refused to sit and wallow in the fact that I couldn’t do them the next day and instead, chose to go despite the obstacle and still do something great for my mind and body. Don’t get me wrong, there are some injuries that once you get, you should most definitely take a break from the gym to give them time to heal. But in this case, I knew I could still go and knew in the end, it was what was best for me.
In the end, I went and my finger didn’t bother me at all! It was wrapped up a lot though haha. But ring rows were a great substitute (and man do they work your core too) and was able to still get in a good workout and see some friends 🙂
So let’s agree to be resilient, courageous, and committed. No matter what situation arises, let’s continue to commit to loving ourselves and having a holistically healthy life.
