www.Hypersmash.com Beating Lyme: 2016

zaterdag 2 april 2016

2015 and first quarter 2016 - the 15 months that flew by

It's hard for me to believe how fast the last 15 months have flown by. I moved into a new team at work at the end of 2014. That still seems like yesterday but it coming up 1.5 years ago. I guess it's part of getting older that the years seem to go by faster. In a way I think it's a good sign. For most of that time my health and happiness levels have been very high. And when that's the case time seems to pass faster. During 2010 and 2011 when I was really struggling the weeks and months used to drag on forever.

Aside from a couple of blips my health has been great. So long as I stick to eating whole foods and close to zero tolerance on sugars (and alcohol) then my health and general wellbeing continues to get better and better. Far higher then before I got sick with Lyme disease. During those times it's fair to say that I've made a 100% + recovery.

2 or 3 times per year I generally have a blip. The trigger for the blip is usually a holiday. It's a familiar story: I go on holiday and start to get relaxed with my nutrition. I start to enjoy a bit of wine and chocolate in the evenings. First few days my health is still great so I keep going, upping the wine, chocoate and introducing a bit more bread, pasta and other foods that I generally avoid.

Now I need to make it clear that, aside from the chocolate, I'm not binging on this stuff. 2 or 3 glasses of wine a night, a couple of slices of bread. That's all we're talking about. But it's enough. After a week or two my health starts to suffer. Especially my sleep. It was my first problem when I got sick with Lyme disease and it's the most enduring and most insidious. Usually this time coincides with the holiday ending and beginning back at work. I don't then have the luxury of being able to take it easy and rest during the day so I manage to convince myself that it's OK to up the coffee and chocolate intake to give me the energy to get through the day.

But of course it's a no-win strategy. My sleep suffers more and every day becomes a struggle. That is the downward spiral I've found myself in 2 or 3 times per year in the 6 years since I first got sick with lyme disease. When I'm doing well, which is around 9 months per year, then I'm doing great. But when I'm in a blip then life is hard.

I'm coming out of a blip at the moment. Up until the end of February I was doing great. At that time I was finishing a 100 day yoga challenge (100 hot yoga lessons in 100 days). During a lot of those 100 days I felt more content, happier within myself and confident than at any other time in my life.

The last 2 weeks of my yoga challenge were hard. In order to make my goal I had to do at least 2, sometimes 3, yoga lessons per day. It might sound easy but hot yoga is intense. Either 60 or 90 minutes of hard work in 40 degree heat. I pushed myself too hard in those last 2 weeks and once my challenge was over I was wrecked. The day after my yoga finished I went on holiday. I went from extreme discipline and health to no exercise and over indulgence. Booze, junk food, chocolate replaced water, salads and smoothies. TV watching replaced yoga. For the first few days it felt good. Shortly after that my health started to head south. Sleep problems, no energy, back problems. I just felt old and tired.

But I've been through it before. And as the years go by I become more accepting when it happens. Although I'd like to be strict and maintain great health 100% of the time I don't think that's realistic, at least not for me. So these blips, these periods where I fall off the strict eating wagon for a while, could well be something that will continue to feature in my life.

My last blip started a month ago. I'm almost fully back on the wagon now. I did my first yoga class in a month a couple of days ago and immediately I felt better. It's so refreshing going to yoga without a goal in mind. Just being there. That's how I think yoga should be.