Recovery
Time for another update, courtesy of the GO commute and my iPhone.
Once I realized just how crazy my schedule this fall would be, I had to dramatically rethink my physical goals for the next few months. I spent the summer working on general physical preparedness, patching up holes in my strength capacity, and increasing strength endurance. I was initially going to focus heavily on fat loss until December, but that's not a realistic goal, given the breadth of my current commitments.
As the school year drew closer, I found myself becoming more and more stressed out; of course, this overflowed into all areas of my life, and significantly affected my physical performance. I recognized, then, that my capacity for recovery was woefully deficient. I was hanging on by a thread.
So I made it my goal to maintain my workout schedule and eating habits, and to focus on physical and mental recovery. So far, I've been doing really well on the mental front: I've comfortably incorporated hot baths and meditation, and I'm getting better at forcing myself to sit down and watch a movie or something once or twice a week. My communal spiritual life is thriving, and my personal spirituality has picked up again.
I am, however, a bit concerned about the physical side of things. While I'm still making to the gym (and even seeing improvements), and my hunger cues feel comfortable and natural, I'm feeling quite run down most of the time, and I'm certain I'm not getting enough sleep. The sleep I get is pretty good: I'm not waking up more than once a night, and I can get back to sleep pretty easily. I'm just not settling down early enough, and I'm not sure how I can get myself to bed at a time which would allow me a full night's sleep.
At least that's my biggest problem right now.