Back to the gym

Is it hot enough for you yet? How many times have you heard that one this week.....

It's a tad after 6am and according to WeatherUnderground, it's moved down to 68.9 at a nearby station. It was a bit higher when I first checked, and should go down a few more notches before starting to rise again very early in the day. This is supposedly the last day of this current, short, heat wave (highs of 102, 104, etc) and some folks around here are ready to see the end of it. I can understand that, because last summer, in that little tin-roofed skylit cottage, I also suffered. This year, I'm really thankful once more to be where I am -- surrounded by big fir trees in a 3-level building that stays cool, other than the top floor which is also skylit and gets all the heat that rises from the bottom two floors. But that's OK -- nothing up there I need except the kitchen, and I only need that in small doses. My room stays nicely cool, especially with a little judicious use of night air for cooling. In fact, my room was cool enough yesterday that I was happy to go out in the sunshine for awhile around 1pm just to soak up some warmth!

But anyway. One thing you can always count on with the weather is that it'll change, and this is supposed to start cooling off starting tomorrow. For the sake of those out there who don't have cool, tree-shaded homes, I hope it does.

As for the rest of life: boring! I guess the good news is that my body is back to normal. Hallelujah!  Now to get the mind back on track. That's much harder than getting the body back on track. What I'm seeing is one of the prime signs of depression trying to take control, but this is something I dealt with for years and I'll deal with it now.

The fancy, clinical term for it is anhedonia. What it means is loss of pleasure, a lack of interest in doing anything because nothing is appealing, nothing is fun anymore. I learned decades ago that the best way to fight this one is to just do something. Anything. Pick up a broom or a mop. Walk around the block. Force yourself, because you'll need to force yourself when you're in that ugly state. What I found was that once I did something, I would inevitably continue and do something else, and something else without needing to force it. The main thing is to get off your butt and get started. Remember that old truth: a body in motion tends to stay in motion.

I need to put that into use starting Monday, when I plan to return to the gym on a regular basis. I still have a lot more fat to lose, and there's no time like the present to get started with that. No more excuses around feeding an unhealthy body the foods it needs in order to heal. It's diet and exercise time, baby! Do I want to do this? Hell no! But I will do it.

In the meantime, I'm transitioning the food products I have in my fridge and pantry so that by Monday, both the body and food supply will be all primed for diet foods. Not much chance I'll be out walking today, other than maybe a walk around the block, because of the heat. I'll continue to burrow into my cool little cave with books and TV for company.