The Irish Flu

Except, I'm Italian, and I really do have the flu. So, what I thought was just a little cold from overdoing things at the Arnold and the following week turned out to be some string of the flu, and not until today did I finally get out of bed. I thought I felt like crap on Sunday....well, when I woke up Monday morning, I had to check my apartment for tire tracks because I could have sworn I'd been run over by a tractor trailer during the night. My cough moved into my chest, I had a fever, sore throat, and it felt like someone was stabbing my head with an ice pick (I know, don't you just love my vivid comparisons). After calling in sick to work, I promptly made the call to my doctor. Over the course of three days, my trip to the doctor and then the pharmacy was the only time I left my apartment. I can't remember the last time I ever felt so horrible, and I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy (and believe me, I've got a few lol).

I woke up feeling about 80% today and figured that was good enough to go back into work, considering I'd been on my antibiotic for just about 2 full days. But I actually made the decision to take off the rest of this week from the gym. I know this will sound rediculous, but it was a really difficult decision for me to make, and I rattled it around in my head for a long time before emailing my coach about it to let him know. I don't always listen to my body, and I really had to have some internal dialogue on this one to convince myself that going back to the gym feeling shitty was going to be more counterproductive in the long run. And the long run is exactly what I need to be thinking about. I just wish that I could stop stressing about being out of the gym for a week...this way I could have a physical AND mental break from it. Of course, my first thought is how I should cut back on my calories since I'm not training, but I'm still hungry (lemme tell you, this chick's got some appetite). But then if I don't cut back on my food, I'm going to wind up getting fat. Then I worry that the clock is ticking on the time I have to make progress (let's be serious, folks, I still have more than two months of an offseason). So, you can see, it's not much of a mental break. In trying to listen to my body more, I've also decided that if I feel good later this week, and I want to train, then I'll go train. It really can be that simple, jackass.