Evermore

I believe I genuinely am getting better. I went outside today and did five times as much work as I've done on any other day this summer, and didn't feel absolutely horrible afterwards, for the first time since late last summer--tired, but the right kind of tired, not like I'm totally spent and about to collapse (which is how I felt the whole time I was hiking, too).

I see now that this really started last year, in the final months of my fast. That's when I began not having the strength to get through a day's work--before that, I'd been outside working all day most days of a week, from the time I started my projects. And I actually think the beginnings of it goes back further. I've been reading on it, and one of the key symptoms is inability to lose weight or even weight gain while doing serious diet and exercise. That's what started the whole thing; when I realized after getting my bodyfat checked, that I'd been working really hard at the gym and seriously dieting for over a year without making any progress whatsoever--that's when I started doing the extended fasting, to break through that. But I think now that that was my body already telling me that it was in the beginning stages of overtraining or adrenal fatigue or whatever.

I will get the next part of the story up. It's actually drawing near the conclusion; it shouldn't be more than two or three more installments.

All I'm supposed to do is rest. And to be honest, that's all I feel like doing. But things are being left undone, and I'm feeling guilty about them, and overwhelmed by the thought of them stacking up. I try to tell myself that the garden was going to  be left untended while I was hiking anyway, but it doesn't help. I didn't have to look out every day at it from the trail and think about all the things I need to get done. Plus, I was accomplishing something else, and saw it as a compromise.

I'm starting to feel better, very slowly, so I guess it's working. But you know when you've been sick and stuck in the house for days, and you just feel completely worthless and lazy and a bit stir-crazy, even though there's really nothing else you can do?

Also, my weight is getting to me. I haven't actually gained that much, but I feel like I have. The thing is, I don't feel like a fat person who's lost weight anymore: I feel like a thin person who's gained weight, and it makes me feel miserable and even more guilty and lazy.

I know I should be using this time to be productive with my writing and reading, but I'm having trouble focusing because of all this nonsense.

And this damned backpack is just sitting here in my office, staring at me. I suppose I should move it to the basement or something.