Theatre is my life, and it’s only fitting to at least celebrate a talented playwright who helped bring it the masses!
So, it’s currently my fourth day of my personal 21 day challenge and it’s been going ok. The one thing that I am finding difficult is the amount of water I have to take in a day. Using the general water rule (take 1/2 of your body weight, and that is how many ounces of water to drink-to maintain a generally non active state), I have to take in 150 oz.
That is more than twice the standard “8 glasses of water a day”, and it’s hard. Not only am I consuming so much water that I’m getting sick of it (or really bored), but I feel like it becomes a burden. I have to make sure I drink my 16 oz water bottle in full almost every hour that I’m awake. And then on top of it, I have to go to the bathroom more, especially right before going to bed. I have always had issues with going to sleep (my mom used to tell me stories of how she would put me in the crib, come check up on me and I’d be standing there just looking around and not crying but also not going to sleep), and the disruptiveness of this act is becoming a nuisance. It’s harder now that I’m not working, since I don’t feel the “need” for the water. It’s an obstacle I need to overcome, and hopefully this 21 day challenge will help that. It does make it a little bit harder, but none of this journey is easy, right?
While on the elevator coming back to the apartment from going to Lowes and picking up some plants for the apartment, I overheard some guys that I was sharing the elevator with talking about how they had just picked up their registration packet for the Derby Marathon happening tomorrow. This got me thinking about how much I wish that I could be doing that. One of the things that I’ve wanted to accomplish and has been in the back of my brain is to run. Right now, in my current physical state, I barely can run a minute without feeling like my lungs are going to rip out of my chest. I can remember one year while I was in middle school, we had to do laps every Friday. I started by walking most, and then I slowly started running to certain points. I would tell myself “Run to that tree, and then you can walk for a bit”. Every week I would up it, and by the end of the year I remember finding out how much my time had changed and really felt accomplished.
I’ve always wanted to start a Couch to 5k program, but always become mentally stopped. Why? Because I am paranoid about the way people would view me while out in public running and stopping as much. It’s something that really stops me from doing it. I’m fine with walking, but when I have to do something that shows how physically out of shape I really am, it frightens me to think about what people are thinking about me. I do the same thing with gyms. If I’m not going with a friend, it’s hard for me to work up the courage to work out when there are other people around who are physically more fit than me. I hate that I think that way, and I try really hard to not do that, but it ends up not working.
Does anyone else feel this way? I’m still working out the answers as to how I can get past this mental block. I have friends who have said that they would run with me, and that’s fine if it were to go workout on individual equipment, but they are runners themselves and I would feel that I would be keeping them back from getting the most out of their exercise, and I’d feel bad about that. I think one day I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and do it. For most of the stuff in my life, once I just dive right in I’m fine. Until then it’s still a major obstacle that I need to overcome. I am so jealous of everyone who is constantly signing up for marathons or runs and coming back with stories of how they beat their personal record, how much fun they had, how their sense of accomplishment afterword, even the medals and t-shirts make me jealous. I guess if I ever want to make it happen, I need to do it right and stop letting myself mentally not?
Easier said than done.
A Charismatic Life 