I am doing a 16/8 intermittent fast. That means that I am not eating real food for 16 hours a day, and for 8 hours, I eat.
My wife and I are also rolling hard on a low carb, no (at least lots less) refined sugars, diet. It is kind of a mix of keto, whole 30, and whatever else doesnt eat as much sugar.
Dude! What the heck?!? Why are you "dieting"? fasting isn't good for you! Advice, advice, advice... thanks, don't need it.
The deal is, I have plateaued. I have reached a place where nothing is really changing. I have reached a place where even when I feel like I am working out pretty hard, or eating ok, or whatever, changes arent really coming. It is my experience that those symptoms would indicate that I am not doing things as different, or getting out of my comfort zone like I think I am.
While this is great in terms of fitness, body shape, training, whatever, this is not a fitness blog and I am not here to give fitness advice or to tell you the way to be healthy. This blog started the night I lost my son, and my mission is to try and help those who feel stuck. I want to help those who feel lost. I want to help people who dont feel like they have many places to turn, so the internet is where they landed. I want to help anyone who finds themselves here, lost or found.
So why would I talk about my stupid diets and stuff?
Because breakthroughs wont happen if you continue doing the same everyday things that you do. If you dont stretch yourself, you will remain the same.
I don't necessarily mean that you have to saddle up and run an Ironman triathlon like I did, but each time you stretch may feel that way.
The first time I stretched after Carson died, was something seemingly mundane. I went to Walmart. I went with no kids, I went without my wife, it was my dad and I at the Walmart in North Platte, NE. We were there to get poster board for pictures of Carson. This should not have been a stretch, but it most certainly was. We always went to the store as a family. I couldn't very well leave 5 kids at home, all under the age of 9, without parents. It was a big deal to me, but nobody else in the store noticed. Nobody seemed to care. Nobody, but me, knew what was stirring inside me and everyone else was life like normal. That was an interesting stretch that gave me permission to go back to the store and be ready for when the rest of the family came with us.
For weeks, maybe months, it was a stretch for me to get the right number of plates, bowls, silverware, or whatever it was out of the cabinet at meal time. My brain could not count one less than normal. I thought it was super weird, but grief will do that. What I probably should have done, would be to force myself to count the right number, or just set out the extra plate. Not me. I chose to cope by getting out all of the plates. I would take them all out of the cabinet and let kids grab a plate off the pile. There, I didn't have to count. That made it all better. A good example of having a breakthrough? Probably not, but like I when grief invades your life, you have to learn to dance WITH it, instead of avoiding it all of the time.
No matter who you are, where you have been, or what it is that eats at you, you can stretch yourself. You can stretch a little on a trip to Walmart, or you can stretch alot and choose a lofty goal that you are unsure of your ability to reach. Either way, you get to rise up and know that there is one less thing holding you down. You are resilient, you are strong, and you are able to do it.
See you next time!
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