Injury! WHAT do I do now?

Greetings and salutations my friends! Well, as the title of this post states, I'm struggling with my fitness goals due to injury and my lack of patience. It started about 10 days ago with a tightness near my ribs, got worse, got better, got even better, and even though I knew it was still there, I went ahead and tried to work out today. Of course, I'm now worse off than I was. Imagine one of those side stitches you sometimes get when you're running, and then multiply it by 5. I was in so much agony that I truly couldn't get myself up off the floor. To compound the situation, EVERY muscle in your body seems to be tied, somehow, to your abs and ribs. Ugh! I truly despise injuries.

So, clearly the point of this post is about patience. I knew I needed to continue resting my body...it was telling me LOUD AND CLEAR, but in typical fashion, I chose to ignore it. This happens a lot, though, with individuals who are so focused on goals. In fact, the Olympic games was a great example of athletes who fought through pain in order to compete. But sometimes you have to wonder, would they have been better off being patient, and waiting another four years? Was their performance what it could have been? Is it worth the risk? While I wasn't trying to win a medal, my fitness goals are in the front of my mind every single day. It's tough for me to miss a workout, especially considering what I've accomplished so far. But now, I can't work out. It just hurts too badly, so you've got to wonder what I was thinking at the time.

There's nothing now for me to do except to truly rest. I'm allowed to walk my dogs casually (NO power walking), and that is it. It'll be hard for me because I truly have spent every week since April 3, 2009 pushing myself as hard as I possibly could to make myself physically better. However, what comes to mind is that even elite athletes don't push that hard every single day. They choose to workout in a way so that they peak at a certain times, like the Olympic games. At other times, they are able to back off, allow their fitness to drop a smidge, and then build towards another peak. It's a good lesson to be forced to learn because I know when I do come back, my body will respond well after this rest.

That said, there are still ways I can work towards goals. Nutrition. What a perfect opportunity to REALLY work on eating as clean as I possibly can. I can still work on dropping pounds, I can still work on a slimmer physique, and I can really improve my health by making sure that what I put into my body is there to fuel it for the activity required of it. A great resource that I ran across recently is Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Diet Recharged. It's a nutrition guide that really makes sense to me. It's not about eliminating food groups from your diet, but about utilizing REAL foods to fuel your body. It's as simple as that.

So, my focus until I'm well enough to really push my workouts again is to finally ditch the sugar lurking in the small amount of processed foods I eat, eat 5-6 small, nutritionally balanced meals throughout the day, and to eat as cleanly as I possibly can. My journey continues.

If you're ready to start working on your own fitness and nutrition goals, and would like some help, I would love to offer you my help along the way. Just go to my Beachbody Coaching Site and send me a message. I'm sure that together, we can work towards your own transformation as well.