How do you get back to being motivated to stay healthy and exercise after an injury?
The past:
For the last 6 months, I have been eating healthy and exercising regularly. I reduced my body weight from 170 to 149. More than the weight, I look pretty skinny and healthy and I can notice my muscles in my arms and upper body, which has been the cause for my continued motivation.
What happened:
3 weeks ago, I started feeling pain in my non-dominant hand elbow, like tennis elbow. The probable cause is doing weights, probably more than I should have or wrong posture, or just fate.
How the injury impacted me?
- I started slowing down on my exercise routine.
- I could have continued by cardio and focused on leg exercise, but didn’t
- I started eating more than I have been eating during the last 6 months
- Unhealthy food such as french fries, bakery items and oil slowly got reintroduced to my body. I didn’t eat any of them for the last 6 months, but my lack of feeling good from strength training was compensated by eating tasty food.
- Fortunately, my weight didn’t start going up, so I guess I recognized this bad behavior early on.
Communication with my coach:
Chatting to my exercise coach is probably the best thing I did to do the course correction in my behavior. Just a few minutes of chat and his support and motivation made me change my behavior. He taught me to strategize the changes to my routine to accommodate the new reality I am put in. So here is my 7 point move — forward:
#1 — I’m going to have to refocus on cardio — walking, elliptical and may be jogging if my knees permit
#2. I will start focusing on lower body training such as hip abduction, hamstring extension, front leg extension and calf rises. These exercises do not need my hands to be used. For a long time I wanted to focus more on my lower body, but I was focusing more on my upper body, as there was a joy in seeing the muscles grow on my arms and upper body.
#3 — I will listen to my body and not overburden it. I do not want another injury like this, that can act as a reason for me to stop exercising
#4 — I will only eat what I write down the previous day or that morning. If it’s not on the paper, it will NOT be on my plate.
#6 — If I get hungry, I will take a protein shake rather than mindlessly open the fridge or pantry
#7 — I will be transparent and communicate early with my coach and seek help before I do anything unhealthy (like eating mindlessly — or skipping exercise routine multiple days in a row)
