There's No Such Thing as "Regular"
Let me give you a brief run-down of the last 4 weeks of my life:
- Week 1: Got an aerobics DVD from the library, went on the South Beach Diet (Phase 1), and was feeling super motivated to get rid of some extra pudge that's preventing me from fitting into my summer shorts. I even set a regular schedule for myself, waking up at 8 a.m. and getting to bed by midnight every night. It felt great!
- Week 2: Doing awesome! Still supermotivated! I also went to a holistic doctor, who told me that the issue with my skin is yeast. Yeast loves milk, bread, and sugar, which are all forbidden on the South Beach Diet (Phase 1), so I had yet MORE motivation to be on this diet. Wee! She was right, too. My skin was looking AWESOME- the clearest it's been in months. Maybe years! Oh, and did I mention that I lost 8 pounds?
- Week 3: THESIS HELL WEEK. My thesis was due Friday, so I spent an entire week glued to my chair. If I wasn't sleeping or in class, my butt was in that chair. And often I was still in that chair despite my need for sleep and/or class. I hardly even bathed! So needless to say, my workout routine went to hell. As did my diet. I didn't care WHAT I shoved in my mouth, just that I was eating something that would keep me awake and writing. That meant a lot of vending machine Pop Tarts, sugary snacks, and junk. AKA anything I didn't have to prepare.
- Week 4: Recovery and Catch-Up. I thought this week would be so easy, so relaxed. But I was so wrong. I've been playing catch-up with everything I forsook last week: papers, reading, Res. Life paperwork. No rest for the weary! And my diet / exercise / live on a schedule plan is sitting in hell in a handbasket. I officially gained back those 8 pounds.
So what's the lesson I've learned?
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A REGULAR SCHEDULE.
I always tell myself that once that big event, be it my thesis or Winter Break or a vacation or a conference, passes, my life will become more "regular"- that I can make a normal schedule for myself to follow. I find myself saying this most often in the summer: "Once school starts up again, I can make a normal schedule for myself. I can exercise every morning, get to bed on time and wake up early, and do my homework too!" But this never happens. Ever. If it does, it's only for a brief time. I think this two week long stint was the longest I ever went. I must say, I loved it. But it's surprisingly hard to maintain.
Now I'm telling myself that it'll be easier in the summer when I'm working at camp; my life will run by the camp schedule and it will have to be regular. And then I tell myself that life will really get regular next year when I have a real job. It's always going to be easier in some not-so-distant future, when life will be normal.
But life is never normal. There's always some big project or event that gets in the way and throws me off. This is how we Americans get so caught up, isn't it? It's how we stop working out and gain all that weight, how we stop spending quality time with our families.
I guess the solution is that we either have to FORCE a schedule on ourselves, or just be sure to shove a few important things in among the other stuff that pops up: big rocks that are always there, like a 30 minute walk or a family meal. I don't see myself ever being organized and self-controlled enough to have a regular schedule like that, and shoving those big ol' rocks around is hard work. Soo... I'm not sure how to solve this problem.
But while I don't a viable solution, at least I have this realization.
Ugh, life is far more complicated than I ever planned on it being.