So there are a couple of things about my lifestyle that are different here that I've failed to mention so far, both of which are absences that are probably improving conditions for me at home.
1) No scale. I trashed it when I moved out of my place in late April. This summer has been the longest I've gone without consistently weighing myself in YEARS. When I had the scale, I couldn't imagine not using it every day. It was how my day started. Wake up, pee, shed any clothing, weigh. Commence with living and all that mess. If I didn't do it, I spent the whole day anxious that I didn't know the number, didn't know how hard I "needed" to be on myself.
Now that I haven't had one in a while, I honestly just don't want one. I have too many other things on my mind right now I guess, I don't want to have to think about what the number is, what it was yesterday, why is it up/down/the same, oh my god what if it is up/down/unchanged still tomorrow, could I have had too much sodium yesterday or am I dehydrated from too much caffeine yesterday or WHAT THE HELL ELSE CAN I OBSESS ABOUT RELATED TO THIS GODFORSAKEN NUMBER BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW THIS IS WHAT I DO BEST. No thanks.
2) No exercise equipment at home. This, my friends, is a HUGE change.
I wish I could say that it has decreased my exercise time, but alas it's sort of created the opposite situation, because now I have a long walk to and from the gym, so I burn a good bit of energy just getting to my workout and haven't been stellar at compensating for that. I added calories deliberately on a day or two, have just let myself be a little more liberal on other days, but really the issue is that the exercise is eating up SO much of my day. Compensating calories til I burst won't make up for the disruption in my lifestyle, and I really want/need to cut back. Plus, I feel like absolute drained shit these days and I know that's the cause. I had a conversation with a friend about it yesterday that put some things in perspective for me (you rock, lady), and I think I'm going to have to grit my teeth and slash time starting tomorrow.
BUT to get back to the point, I think that having a living space without exercise equipment is helpful, because I can come home and just be in relax/recovery mode, rather than having to halfway dread coming home because I know more workouts are waiting for me. Something about coming home and doing exercising in the evening or late at night makes it seem sort of secretive and more disordered. Not that eating up my day hours with it is any less disordered. You know what, I want this all to just go away.
To end on a positive, I had my first literature discussion/project planning session with my PhD adviser (he needs a letter, let's call him K) this morning, and was SO happy with how it went. He seemed to think I made some very good points and I learned a good bit from him too, and I really like the dynamic that we have so far. It's such a big contrast to my Master's adviser. For example, my MS project was not really related to any research that adviser had done before, so he sort of assumed I knew I was doing and showed no interest in helping me develop methods or theoretical foundations, just sort of left me to it. When it came time for my oral exams and thesis defense, he almost made a fool out of himself because he was so unfamiliar with the literature underlying my methods. It was kind of frustrating that I'd worked so hard to master everything but really could have bullshitted a lot of it and he wouldn't have known the difference.
In contrast, K. and I are starting a project (not my dissertation research, a side project) that covers new ground for both of us, so he set us up a schedule of going over the literature together to learn it at the same time and trade ideas, tackle new methods, etc as a team. And I think it's going to be awesome. I'm feeling more confident about this decision every day. The rest of my lab flew in from Research Country today (a good number of them are native to that country), so it will be exciting to have that group dynamic going too.
I hope everyone's week is off to a great start, love y'all.
3 comments:
Hearts.
I am so proud of you for ditching the scale and not having any exercise equipment at home! Both of those seem incredibly liberating. What a great way to make a fresh start in a new city and new program! I've also gone to much less frequent weighing, and I find that I don't get nearly so fixated on the number, which is very freeing. Congrats to you!
Good luck with the exercise taper, I'm sure it'll be challenging, but ultimately worth it. Your body deserves a little break! And know that I'm always here if you need to vent the anxiety about it :)
So glad the meeting went well! K really sounds wonderful and the side project seems like it'll be exciting to work on together! And have a great time with the rest of the lab!
The lack of a scale is HUGE. I'm so glad you've been able to go this long without seeing the number and cope accordingly. I think the constant weighing is a habit that only gets more deeply ingrained and reinforced the longer you've done it, and for you to cut it after so long is an amazing accomplishment.
The exercise is so tricky, I know that's something you've been dealing with for a really long time and I feel ya on it. This was also an issue for me last year - I had about an XX-min walk round trip to my gym, which just got tacked on to my total workout routine, and very quickly became a "required" part of said routine. Any way you could cut a portion of your gym cardio and see the walking as a substitution rather than an addition? Anyway, glad your home has become a living space and not an exercise space! I think separating ED routines from real life is really important in recovery, so it's great you have that distinction.
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