Sometimes we have very valid reasons for skipping our intended exercise routine.

Working overtime.  Lunch with a friend.  Getting sick.

Over the years, I’ve learned to listen to my body when I begin to feel a little rundown, and take a day or two off from exercise in hopes of avoiding a full-blown illness that throws me out of commission for a week or more.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Of course, when I give myself permission to skip the gym, I feel like the “disappointed” child who wakes up with chicken pox on the day of the big spelling test. “Guess I’ll have to make it up another day, huh, Mom?”

Despite my precautions of massive vitamins, homeopathic supplements and exercise-skipping, sometimes I still end up sick.  And although I think about returning to the gym once I’m on the mend, I often put it off a few more days. 

“What if I’m almost recovered, but not quite, and a weight training session tips the scales, drops my immunity, and I end up sick for another week?  I definitely don’t want that to happen!  Better take it easy through the weekend.”  Or the quarter.  And my exercise program falls by the wayside.  Again.

However, I now know that’s really my Inner Slug talking, just doing her job.  Nothing personal.

So when I felt a cold coming on recently, I took it easy for a day or two, but still got my butt kicked by whatever germs triumphed my immune system [probably got them at the gym!] and was justifiably off exercise for nearly a week.

When my Inner Slug suggested that I take one more day off from exercise, I ignored her.  But I didn’t go crazy, either.  I headed to the nearby Greenbelt path for a brisk let’s-get-back-to-the-exercise-routine walk. 

And during the walk, a funny thing happened.  I felt good.  I suddenly realized that this was exactly what I needed after so many days of inactivity and lethargy.

Next thing I knew, I was running.  Not at my pre-illness pace - and only for about a block - but it felt great. 

It was then that I realized - gasp! - that I had missed it.  I had actually missed exercising.

I immediately wondered what my Inner Slug had to say about that.

But she was silent!  Speechless, perhaps?

Now that’s progress!

Tags: exercising while sick, Inner Slug, Scottsdale Greenbelt

It’s that time again.

Time to return to the gym.

It doesn’t seem to matter if you’ve been away for 6 weeks, 6 months, or 6 years….the “return” is never easy. 

To actually make it happen, you may have to overcome scheduling logistics, deal with guilt about taking time for yourself, or worse - you might have to defeat your Inner Slug.  Sometimes that’s the greatest challenge of all!

My pending return to the land of pain and sweat is the result of a simple question - posed by my husband, to our 6-year-old daughter:

“How would Mom do on American Gladiators?”

I sat back, awaiting what I thought would be a very enthusiastic response.  My daughter has become quite a Gladiators fan this summer, and I expected her to say something along the lines of “Awesome!”

Sure, I get winded running up a half-flight of stairs and I may experience severe muscle soreness the day after playing Wii bowling, but she doesn’t know that.

Instead, she deflected the question diplomatically, instead asking “What do you think, Dad?”

At six years old she can already sense the equivalent of “Does this dress make my butt look fat?” and sidestep it tactfully.

So it’s back to the gym for me.

I’ve got some serious work to do if I’m going to take on Crush and Hellga.

Tags: American Gladiators, Inner Slug