Gym? Who?

I would like to get back on track with fitness and nutrition and generally taking care of myself.

Hoo boy.

Am I not doing that on a daily basis.

I was going to say this started after Burn, but that isn’t quite true. It started when Kids Were Here this past summer. Burn just came along afterward and said, Oh, are we abandoning routines? Excellent. I can help.

And now it is October.

For more than a year, I had been doing this thing where I actually took care of myself with some consistency. I got up early. I strength trained three times a week. I walked every day. I drank water. I ate reasonably well.

I did all the deeply annoying things people tell you will make you feel better. And, irritatingly, they made me feel better.

A lot better.

Which means I now have empirical evidence that taking care of myself works.

Rude.

I would like to get back there.

Sooner rather than later, actually, because now I know the difference. I know how I feel when I am moving and eating well and sleeping and generally remembering that I am a mammal with maintenance requirements.

Except there is a small complication.

Her name is Luna.

Luna is our kitten, although I believe her official scientific classification is Chaos Gremlin Bitey McBiterton. She would like to cuddle in the middle of the night and while we are falling asleep and, with astonishing precision, just before my alarm goes off.

This has made my former practice of whipping out of bed at four in the morning somewhat less …whippy.

Because there is a tiny warm creature purring on me.

This is obviously an insurmountable fitness obstacle.

Please respect my privacy during this difficult time.

But here’s the thing I’ve been noticing: I’m still getting up. Not at 4:00, necessarily. More like 4:30-ish.

The ish is doing some work there.

I’m not strength training three times a week yet. I’m not walking every day. I’m not eating exactly the way I want to eat. I am definitely not operating at whatever absurd level of consistency I had convinced myself was Normal Rain Behavior before the summer detonated all over it.

But I am eating healthIER.

I am moving MOAR.

And every week, I’m doing a little more of the things that make me feel like myself.

I think there is a part of me that wants to dismiss all of this because I know what I can do. I’ve done it before. There is a fully documented Previous Version of Rain who woke up at four and exercised and drank their water and ate their vegetables and presumably glowed faintly with the smug radiance of adequate hydration.

So anything less can feel like failing to get back on track.

Except.

Maybe I don’t need to get back on track.

Maybe there isn’t a track.

Maybe there are just habits I built because they made my life better. Then life changed. Kids were here. Burn happened. Summer happened. A kitten invaded our home and instituted mandatory pre-dawn snuggling.

The habits got disrupted.

That isn’t the same thing as losing them.

I think that’s the part I’m beginning to understand. A year of taking care of myself didn’t disappear because I had a messy few months. I don’t have to recreate that year from scratch. I already learned things there.

I know what strength feels like now. I know what eating well feels like. I know what moving regularly does to my brain. I know what it feels like when I am taking care of this particular creature I happen to live inside.

And I miss it.

That feels important.

So maybe the goal right now isn’t GET BACK TO THE ROUTINE. Maybe the goal is just to keep making choices in roughly the direction I want to go.

4:30-ish.

Healthier.

Moar.

One walk. One workout. One decent meal. One glass of water I remembered to drink because apparently operating a human body involves an astonishing amount of routine maintenance.

And then another.

I’m freaking proud of that.

Not because 4:30-ish is secretly the same thing as 4:00, or because one workout is secretly three. I don’t need to turn what I’m doing into something bigger in order for it to count.

It counts because I’m doing it.

I’m moving in the direction of myself again. Slowly, sleepily, occasionally with a kitten attached.

Wish me luck?

And if you’ve figured out any hacks for rebuilding healthy routines after life gleefully scatters them across the floor, I would genuinely love to hear them.