I knew I was getting better when I noticed I was dancing to my music while I cooked dinner the other night. The last time I had worked out was on Friday, January 20th, and when I woke up the next day and felt that scratch in my throat, I knew I was in for a rough week. Little did I know my rough week would last almost four weeks. Two posts ago, I wrote how good I felt and how my new habits and routines all seemed to be clicking at once. I recounted in my next post the beginnings of my sickness and how I thought I was getting better. A few days after that post, I worked out again, even though I wasn’t feeling 100%, and I worked out again the next day even though I was feeling worse than I did the day before, and that decision, unfortunately, exacerbated my sickness and made me feel worse than the first week living with my illness. This sickness knocked me out, and I was at a point a few weekends ago where I seriously considered writing my eulogy. I felt that awful. But here I am, in this third post about my health, confident that I’m closer to 100% than I have been since my last good workout on the 20th of January.

I worked out on Monday of this week, then again on Tuesday, and I felt really good after both workouts. Unfortunately, things at work carried over into my personal life and I haven’t worked out since. In my notebook, I’ve told myself that this is a transitionary week, a week where I try to build my old habits and routines slowly, a week where I give myself some slack, and that’s what I’m holding onto now. Things were going great before my sickness, and I have wondered where I would be with some of my goals if I didn’t get sick, but I can’t think like that. Life is all about how well you can adapt to all the bullshit coming your way, and this sickness—something that felt like pneumonia multiplied by a million—was the epitome of bullshit. But I’m better now, as close to 100% than I have been since that third week of January.

There are lots of things I want to do, want to accomplish, but they all depend on good health. There’s only so much I can do when all I have the energy to do is filling trash bags with used tissues and cough drop wrappers. I still managed to get up to my alarm every morning and write in my notebook, but even then… I am ready to get back to work and get back to living the life I want to live. I am almost at 100%, and I want to focus and do what I want to do instead of what I’m being forced to do.

I appreciate each breath of fresh air, and I hope I have many more before it’s all said and done. Let me focus on that and enjoy this moment of life.

in: notes
tagged: health

For the past week, I’ve been battling a cold that has kept me from living the life I want. I first felt the sickness coming last Thursday when I felt that familiar yet godawful tickle in my throat that developed into a full-blown old man’s cough by the weekend. I remember I slept for over 9 hours one of those days and I was still tired.

My only saving grace was that my new Playstation 5 arrived that Thursday, so while I recovered, I played a lot—and I mean a lot—of God of War, so much so that I’m only three trophies away from earning the marvelous platinum trophy, a feat I usually don’t care about but I do in this instance. My whole entire week has been focused on recovering from this sickness and playing this game on my new toy, and it’s been nice. Unproductive as hell, but nice.

I returned to work yesterday for the first time all week, but I could only manage half a day before I clocked out early and went home. I woke up this morning hacking half my lung, but I feel better. During this sickness, I’ve still been going through my comforting morning routine, and that meant that I cold achieve this little accomplishment I can hang my hat on:

I can’t believe it’s “only” been 100 days since I started meditating again. It’s been a much needed companion for me these past few months, and I’m grateful for it. I’m still not at 100%, but I’m getting there. I have been able to sit at my desk and work all morning today, for example, and that feels good. I’m still not able to workout or do anything that requires 100% focus, but I’m getting there. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel again, and that feels very nice. I’m hoping for a restful weekend so I can be back at it again by Monday.

Here’s hoping.

in: notes
tagged: gaming health mindfulness

I feel good. Great, even. Many (but not all) of my new habits and routines I’ve been building over the past month seem to be clicking all at once now, and my days feel good, and because of that, I feel good.

I woke up to twenty—twenty—low heart rate notifications on Friday, an obvious record for me. Last week, Apple Fitness+, my workout service of choice, released kickboxing workouts, and I spent every weekday last week going through them. Normally, my heart rate maxes out at around 150bpm during my most intense workouts (HIIT mostly), but I noticed during my kickboxing workout on Thursday that my heart rate maxed out in the 170s. During my sleep that night, I practically entered hibernation mode, and I woke up the next day feeling strong, lean, and healthy. When I weighed myself on Saturday, I dropped another pound, making that 4.5 pounds lost since the start of December. My goal then was 10 pounds, and I’m almost halfway through achieving it.

Fitness is only part of the equation. Good sleep also matters, as well as how I fuel my body. The last book I read last year was Thrive: The Plant-Based Whole Foods Way to Staying Healthy for Life by Brendan Brazier. The Thrive Diet is basically an alkaline diet, where the focus is on eating foods that are not too acidic. The first few chapters go through the science, and frankly, I didn’t give a shit about that. Brendan spent those chapters trying to sell me on his food philosophy, and it felt like a snake oil salesman trying to sell me on bullshit. But! The last half of the book was devoted on recipes, and these looked good. They were high on good, natural foods, something that jived well with my vegan diet—I diet I started on January of 2017. Over the last few weeks I’ve been slowly—oh god slowly—adding these recipes into my recipe app and acquiring as many ingredients as I could in my small town. Last week, I finally finished adding all the recipes into Mela, and I started to finally make some of these foods.

And oh my god.

The few I’ve made have been more than just good—they’ve been great. The almond flaxseed burger was orgasmic, and the chocolate blueberry energy bars helped me see in multiple dimensions. After I took my first bite of the burger, I messaged my friend and told her, “I love being vegan.” She didn’t say anything because she was busy eating meat, but oh my god, that night’s dinner is forever ingrained in my head. It was also the same night where I watched The Menu, which added an extra dimension to the viewing experience (what a great movie, by the way).

This week, I hope to keep pushing myself as hard, if not harder, during my workouts, and I hope to keep making more of these Thrive recipes. The book also has a 12-week meal plan (that I also digitized), and I’m not quiet ready to start that yet (some recipes require ingredients I can only find on Amazon so far), but it is on my radar. There are these pizza recipes I really want to try but they require buckwheat flour, and why don’t more stores carry buckwheat flour? What the hell? Anyways.

It’s been a good 2023 so far. Let’s keep going.

in: notes
tagged: books health movies