Weekends
At first I was trying to write this with the general population in mind. I was thinking about how the weekends pull us off track. How our weekends lead us down the path of temptations and overindulgences. The more I wrote, the worse my writing sounded. I actually have no idea if anyone else struggles with their weekends. Maybe your weekends lead you the relaxation and recharge that you so badly need. Maybe your weekends give you time to meal prep and schedule for the upcoming week. Maybe your weekends are spent in your pajamas drinking coffee and doing anything you please. Not me, my weekends are leaving me exhausted. They are leaving me off track and with the feeling that I am treading water in most things life.
Don’t get me wrong, I have been having some amazing weekends. I have had the opportunity to travel a lot this year. I have taken my boys on some really cool trips away, a few overnighters in the city and a few plane trips. I have also been to some really cool places by myself and with friends. These weekends have given me some self care that has been heavily neglected in previous years. They have given me time to reconnect with relationships, spending time with friends laughing until my cheeks hurt and I pee my pants. I’ve had weekends where I’ve danced well into the night, improving on dance moves that could possibly be competition level. This time away from everyday life has given me a light and fun spin on life that I forgot existed. My weekends have been full of experiences I am thankful to have.
My weekends are far from my weekdays. With all the fun that I’ve had, I’ve also had a lot less self control. It doesn’t take much for my self control around candy, tortilla chips or champagne to remind me that I actually don’t have self control around those things. I am so ready to experience the fun that sometimes I experience too much of everything. For example, I was just in California visiting friends with my minis. We had a blast, the weather was warm, the boys were well behaved and we got a lot of time to just hang out and catching up. My friends also kept a never ending supply of trail mix, which I enjoyed for the entire weekend and can honestly say there was no ending. There was all my favorite cereals, I was on vacation and felt like snacking on them was just part of the experience. And then there was Barney’s Burgers, where I may have had the largest burger with the best toppings. I ate it until my stomach almost exploded. And I didn’t stop there, I had curly fries and some milk shake with it.
Most of my weekends have followed a similar path of indulgences leading to over indulgences. If these weekends were happening once a month or a few times a year I would be all in. I wouldn’t be writing about this. But these weekends are happening almost every weekend. I have spent my year saying yes to weekends away, which is leading to some really rough Monday mornings. I start the week tired from late nights, bloated from too much of everything and emotionally exhausted from travels. I am finding that my Monday’s are days for recovery and by about Tuesday or Wednesday I start feeling more like myself, my structured, disciplined self. At times, I question if I should have made better choices to make Monday easier or if this is just what I need for myself right now. I really can’t figure out the right balance for my weekends.
Because of my weekends, the progress I have made in the gym has been a lot of hard work, harder than it should be. My nutrition is all over the place and getting harder to find what “getting back on track” really looks like. I try not to let my experiences turn into guilt, but there are times I just feel guilty. I feel guilty for the red vines and chocolates, for the champagne and soda pop, for the restless nights and early mornings.
Guilt or no guilt, they were decisions I made. I made them as part of the experience, as part of the fun. I have had some rough mornings and some rough workouts. I have started my Monday wishing I didn’t eat as much or drink as much over the weekend. But all in all, I knew what I was getting myself into and the highs have been higher than I ever thought I could go and the lows were not very low. I have maintained my training and nutrition by coming back and being back. The structures of my weekdays make it easy for reentry.
Weekends are what we make them. Most of us get to decide what we do and how we do it. The main lesson I have learned this past year is to enjoy it. My kids are finally at an age where I can be gone for a weekend, my business is lucky to have people to substitute for me if I miss a day. Taking care of myself can seem selfish and self centered, but I have found relationships with myself and the people around me I never would have know if it wasn’t for these times.