Tag: exercise

I can do it with a Broken Brain?

From Getty Images

Life got tough (..er) for a while.

I am at my heaviest weight ever.

I can’t do it anymore like this.

I cannot live a life fuelled by sugar, caffeine, unhappiness and the belief that “tomorrow I’ll do better”.

It has to happen TODAY. Right now. This time, not later. What am I doing for me right now?

I can’t live with being stressed all the time. All the to-dos. I am TIRED of having so much to do. I DONE with then never doing it. And this constant vicious negative cycle in which I never rest but am not productive, and all the stress and self-hatred that comes with that way of living.

I want peace. I need to protect my peace, whilst getting *some* shit done.

I am sick of being late. Of being untidy. Of being unhealthy. Of being so ooverweight. Of being unfit. Disorganised. Stressed at work. Low-self esteem. Continual Exhaustion – procrastinating and never going to bed on-time (WHYYY I AM SO SICK OF IT). Procrastinating and stimming with damaging bad habits – and all the while, stressing about all the important things I should be doing. Panic packing my bag for travelling, close to missing transport, and being so annoyed I’ve left it all last minute AGAIN. Wishing I was someone else.

But I can do this. I will do this. I can be better.

It’s been a year since I’ve written here. I was in the midst of extended time in training, facing the next review to prove I had the potential to be the dependable, competent, team-working registrar – and all the extra work that comes with that (but that’s work “monitoring my progression”). I “passed” the review – but still not marked at the acceptable level. Ironically, working towards that review put further pressure on me, and I was still struggling in juggling all the tasks.

In June, I failed my specialty exam by FOUR MARKS. Only 28% of the regs that took the exam passed it. What kind of exam process is that?! My therapist sees it as I was therefore top 30%…. But it still means re-sitting the exam and everything that entails.

But I have not had any alcohol in 1 year 3 weeks. Which I never would’ve thought I could do. But instead I’ve replaced it with Ben & Jerrys – IT’S TOO DAMN GOOD.

And also, I was diagnosed with ADHD. Which was startling and unexpected and a whole other topic to consider. And just no wonder I was struggling – it all really fits. But the first medication I tried horribly exacerbated my acne.

And then my aunt died whilst we were on holiday. And that was so much more stress and difficult family dynamics than I really wished to have. Especially as I was already crumbling.

But my exam resit has been postponed. My next review has been delayed to the summer. I want to focus on me again. Sleep, healthy eating, exercise, being organised. The simple things.

And I need to learn to do it all with a broken brain. I’m also now a Swiftie. But that’s definitely a story for another time.

Let’s do this. I have to. This has to be the beginning of being better.

I can do this with a broken brain, broken sleep, broken diet, broken fitness; I will put me back together again.

Wish I wasn’t doing another “starting again” title

I can’t believe it’s been 2 months. Time has flowwwwn. It’s been incredibly busy – but then again, who isn’t busy these days?

September and October, and somehow half of November.

I was busy, I was stressed, and I wasn’t looking after myself (yes, yes, despite saying I would on previous posts… this is the theme of my life). I wasn’t drinking alcohol – so my go to chill in the evening after a stressful day was eating junk food. And I ate a lot of it. It would not be unusual to have a large bag of popcorn (Sweet Butterkist is sooo good…) and a full tub of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food (my favourite). And probably more.

And then I would have guilt for that. So I would stress more. And the vicious cycle would continue.

I’ve always thought I’ve been told that it’s been shown that sugar has been proven to be addictive. I truly believe in emotional eating as an addictive behaviour. However, somebody told me recently that it’s not – there’s not any proven biochemical proof of addiction. So this will definitely be an area I am going to look into someday (one day the link will be  – here – )

I did run an 8k in the Amsterdam TCS marathon festival. Amsterdam is such a great place. Had a fantastic time. And I ran it in 49mins, which I was truly surprised at – my training was very suboptimal (if we can even call it training..). But I am overjoyed at it, and motivated to keep running and keep my fitness.  Although my friend did the half-marathon and she also was “undertrained”.. and then ran it in 1h 50… I can only dream to one day achieve that with all the preparation in the world!!

And then I got injured. The week after – survived basketball training fine. Two days later, warming up, went to do a sprint from standing and strained my calf muscle. Tried to a lay-up and it wasn’t having it. I was devastated. Such shit timing. Didn’t get to play at all, and then basically didn’t exercise for a while (which was not the right way to handle it… but see below…). So that really interfered with any training ideas I had been motivated to do.

Then, I fell off the sober wagon. I had achieved 3 months sober, I was so proud of me. But I hadn’t quite achieved any state of mental nirvana.. and with a stressful week, a sick patient experience which didn’t go very well, then a Halloween party (which I hosted) was too much to resist. To be fair, it did all start because I accidentally opened an actual alcoholic beer instead of the non-alcoholic beer of the same brand I had in the fridge. I was half way through before I realised. And then fun chaos with costumes and ripping things and mayhem… and shots were mentioned… and taken. It was a brilliant night… until I was up still up at 5am buzzing.

Thought I’d learnt my lesson (not a fun hangover), but a trip home, some family stresses, and attending a wedding with brilliant friends I only get to see when home, and the ex-partner in situ and the free wine at the reception ended up in my hands… Fast forward through many shots and excess alcohol, and yup, Pauline is still awake at 5am and more chaos ensued.

I am just tired of it. One drink opens me to a world of chaos. I need to look after me, to make sure the worlds stresses don’t lead to me giving into that one drink. And that will take a lot of work. And I really want to document that journey –  regularly, truthfully, – in this blog.

And that will involve me trying to get fitter and healthier. That is a crucial part to me feeling better about myself. Not only does exercise make me feel much better mentally and physically, I will feel an overall better of myself if I am healthier and happier.

But that will not be easy, and I am not naïve to think it will be. I need a system and a method that I can stick with to make my world better. I can’t feel overwhelmed with trying to stick to rabbit foods or truly restrictive diets. Nor will I exercise 2 hours every day. This is unrealistic and unattainable. And goddam I need chocolate in my life.

So how to do it? What is the right way to make long term realistic manageable weight loss and stay sane? Even with my medical training, I’m still not entirely sure. But I have some ideas. And I really want to get into the research and see what really is out there. And I will share that with you all, hopefully in a way we can all understand. Hopefully, that will be the PMA Way. And I’m excited to truly get it going.