The warning sign on the golf course that saved me
to you
No matter how sustainable you think your routine is, or how much motivation you have, life will eventually find a way to interfere.
Coach Kayla and I see it with our clients on a regular basis. In fact, it’s the reason many of them come to us for help.
But as inevitable as an occasional setback is, it doesn’t make it acceptable to let it become a more permanent way of life that leaves you feeling less than your best.
I recently noticed this trend surfacing with myself.
After a frustrating summer of rehab for my shoulder and back, followed by two consecutive weekends of sectionals tennis tournaments, it was time to give my body some rest and take a break from both tennis and fitness training.
It was also time for some shoulder and back imaging, because the numerous rounds of physical therapy I did clearly hadn’t been enough.
Imaging, however, is a double-edged sword. While it’s great for getting clearer and more definitive answers, it can often open a can (or multiple cans) of worms.
And opening multiple cans of worms is exactly what it did! Big cans or worms. But it needed to be done.
So, in addition to giving my body a break, I needed time to go through rounds of appointments for the imaging (which is still ongoing) and figure out my next steps based on the results.
The break was much needed, for multiple reasons. But I let it go on too long – more than a month – and I let too many things slide.
Having more free time led me to take on some projects that I probably shouldn’t have (like the food database update I wrote about last week). I ended up overloading myself with work.
All that work made it easy to let my aerobic training drop to zero despite not needing to do so for my shoulder or back.
Yep, I fell victim to a common problem that Coach Kayla and I help many of our clients with. Nobody’s immune. But I do know how to quickly recognize and correct it.
In this case, recognition came from being more sore and tired than usual from walking 18 holes of golf.
It wasn’t a major, slap-you-in-the-face kind of decline that was going to make a big difference in my life. But it was clearly a sign.
The type of sign – subtle, but significant in meaning – that you need to be on the lookout for and ready to respond to.
It’s like a hole that grows deeper with continued neglect.
At first, it’s not a big deal because you can step right out of it. But the longer the neglect continues, the deeper the hole gets, until it eventually feels like climbing a giant mountain to get out of.
If left unaddressed, a month or two from now, that fatigue could make its way into everyday life, along with other undesirable effects, like poor moods and brain fog. No thank you – I’ll pass!
It would’ve been easy to brush off the extra soreness and fatigue I felt from golf, but instead, I saw it as the start of a small problem that could grow into something much bigger. I saw it as the shallow hole that was just going to get deeper with time.
That’s all I needed to see.
Recognize and take action. That’s what’s enabled me to go two decades and counting without ever veering too far from healthy habits.
The same day I recognized that early warning sign, I made some changes.
I implemented some of the new things I know I’ll need to do, based on recent imaging, to keep my body as healthy as possible.
And the next morning, I got on my bike for an easy, time-to-get-your-sh*t-back-together aerobic workout.
It felt great! It was that “why did I ever stop doing this” feeling.
I bet you know that feeling, right? Like I said earlier, nobody is immune to life getting in the way. Not me, not Coach Kayla, not even the athletes and fitness celebrities you see on TV. Nobody!
But sometimes that feeling can be counterproductive, if you let it.
It makes you feel so full of ambition that you hop right on an all-or-nothing rollercoaster ride. It makes you think you can go from zero to all-in overnight – until you burn out after a few short weeks (or less) and end up right back where you started.
The main thing to learn here, beyond early recognition, is to ease back in.
In my case, I’m starting with just the essentials, piece by piece, and will add more as I go.
Start small, let your new routine solidify into a habit, then add more (if necessary).
As I’ve said many times, and in many ways – it’s the long game that matters. And by long game, I don’t mean weeks and months – I mean years and decades. That’s the type of consistency that makes life-altering differences in your health and wellness!
Starting small makes that kind of consistency much less daunting.
To early recognition,
Dr. Vin
🆘 Need help getting back on track (and staying there)? Schedule a free call with Coach Kayla to see how we can help you feel great and be more confident in your health — for the long haul!