Okay before I say a word about myself, I hereby order you to go read Claire Legrand’s post “Y’all, Please Remember To Shower.”  Beverage warning.  I swear I literally laughed so hard and so long, I had tears just rolling down my face.  BEST BELLY LAUGH I’VE HAD IN MONTHS.

Back?  So today is my first day without Dermabond or Liquid Bandage or anything ELSE but, you know, skin and scab, holding my nose together.  Pardon the kind of gross imagery there, but I’m excited.  It’s got a ways to go to heal yet, and I’ve got a long road of Mederma and Vitamin E oil ahead to try to minimize the scarring, but life as I know it can resume!

This morning I got up and did yoga for the first time in a week.  Which was both an awesome and owie of an experience.  I was stiff as a board for not having done it, and I thought I might possibly die during the last thirty seconds of the final pose (I’ve hit Guru on the Flexibility level of New U), but I felt SO MUCH BETTER when I finished.  Then I went ahead and knocked out my 8 Minutes in the Morning weights routine (which is the ONLY thing I’ve done all week, save one round of boxing).

Y’all I have learned a valuable lesson this week (apart from the fact that I use my EYEBROWS A LOT):

I need exercise.

I made a statement in my post on Tuesday that I hated exercise.  This is not strictly true.  What I hate is sweating.  Which is why my husband and I keep our house like a meat locker.  I know, I know, we totally live in THE WRONG PART OF THE COUNTRY.  I hate the getting up early because I like to sleep.  I hate the time it takes away from other things I’d rather do.  But the exercise ITSELF–that I like.  And that I need.  Because this last week without it…did not go well.

I lead a stressful life.  Now this is not to say that I experience super traumatic PTSD inducing stress like soldiers in a combat situation.   It’s just a whole lot of cumulative, small (and sometimes big) stressors, many of which I have zero control over.  Which makes not one iota of difference to this Type A, 24-carat control freak who tries to control it anyway.  I know on a professional clinical level that the most high stress people tend to be the ones who try to control things that are not actually controllable.  Their coping skills are not adequate because, you know, they aren’t WORKING.  :raises hand:   I recognize this myself on a fully conscious level.  Doesn’t make it any easier to actually, you know, let stuff go.  And since I can’t seem to let stuff go, this leads to a great deal of frustration that has to go somewhere.  As I am not currently writing anything involving murder or ass-kicking (between projects, thanks), that frustration regularly gets released by EXERCISE.

And you were wondering why I’m addicted to boxing.

When I DON’T get that release (and when I’m even more underslept than usual) this leads to…well, a full-on, tee-totaling meltdown wherein I am completely overwhelmed and crushed by the fact that I can’t control the things that are stressing me and suddenly can’t control anything at all and IT IS BAD.  I cried, and I never cry.  I let my dinner get cold and had to be forced to eat it.  It was that dire.  Also, thankfully, short-lived.  I was past the spaz and back to trying to organize and control things (the stuff I legitimately CAN control) within a couple of hours.

But the point is, I get way more out of exercise than just physical strength or calorie burn and hopefully a smaller bum.  I need it for MY SANITY.  Which, you know, is kind of a bigger part of my whole Operation Goddess In Training.  Because as much as weight loss is a part of it, it’s not the whole.  What G.I.T. is REALLY about, for me, is making me a better me over all, mentally, physically, and emotionally.  And I think I lost sight of that.  Just had to share.