I'm an idiot.

Last week, I ran too hard and subsequently ended up with weird pain in my Achilles tendon on my right leg. I promptly forced myself to cut back on the exercising so that I'd be able to dance all right at the ball I went to last weekend (which incidentally, was amazing, and a rare and revalatory moment of just feeling so happy to be me...) and it hurt a bit after, but was mostly fine. I gingerly tried a run on Wednesday with the deal that I'd stop as soon as I felt the slightest discomfort. But it was fine and I ran my 3 miles. This afternoon in the gym, I did between 2 and 3 miles, and then stopped because I thought I felt something twinging. But then I went to my dance class, and felt fine until almost the end when my calf muscle freaked out and became so painful that I had to stop and do some serious stretching. So now I've hobbled home and I'm sitting in bed with an ice pack, kicking myself for pushing myself too hard and not giving myself time enough to recover.

See, I like losing weight. The rush of success is like nothing I've ever known before. You could probably say I'm addicted to it. And daily exercise is a big part of what's been letting me steadily lose 2 pounds every week. That's why I pushed too hard. I wanted to run as soon as I could. I couldn't stand not doing anything. It felt lazy and self-sabotaging. It felt a bit like failure.

And because I was an idiot and pushed too hard, I now definitely can't exercise for this weekend, and possibly the whole of next week too. This is now a firm rule:

I am not allowed to push myself to do anything more than gentle walking, and that only when necessary.

The world will not end if I don't go running for a little while. Furthermore:

I am not allowed to restrict my calories in some misguided attempt to sustain the same rate of weight loss without exercise.

That would be unhealthy and detrimental, because I need those calories to repair my injury as quickly as possible, and in general my body could probably do with a refuel. If I keep driving myself into the ground physically, I could do myself some serious and long-lasting damage, and achieving a short-term weight loss goal is not worth that.

This post is largely to convince myself. And I vow to re-read it to remind myself of these things if I find myself slipping. I could be my own worst enemy here.

Aren't I always?

Sigh.