Needing Encouragement Again

Last week I was all psyched and excited to be lifting again, and I was enthusiastic about climbing (yet didn't manage to do it at all that week), and right now at this moment part of my brain is curled up in a corner whimpering.

I had a crappy day of climbing on Tuesday, and not much better last night.  The joke amongst climbers is that it's a "high gravity day" because it feels like every move is harder than it should be.  Like your bones have turned to lead when you weren't looking.

While I avoid weighing myself as a general rule, I have regular dates with an endocrinologist and hopping on the scale seems to be part of the deal.  This means that since I've been dutifully medicating for my Graves' disease, I've got to watch my weight creep up and up and up.  I've been in laundry crisis this week and thus discovered that some formerly baggy pants are now tight enough on the waistband to be uncomfortable and essentially unwearable.  Despite getting overheated I've stopped wearing tank tops to the climbing gym because they don't hide my flab well enough.  I skulk from the shower to locker in the Uni gym with a towel clutched in front of my ballooning belly.  My body and I are not getting along well.

I don't have the best diet in the world, but it doesn't suck.  My carbs are fairly limited, and I don't do processed food.  The dietician was complimenting my eating habits last time she was looking at my food log.  I kind of am at  loss as to what more I can cut out without getting all bingey (and I will binge if I try to restrict my eating).  I could probably make an effort to sleep more (but I have a hard time going to bed the moment I'm home from the lab).  I could do cardio (although I hate it beyond words, and when the hell do I have time?!)  I'm feeling a little stuck.

I feel like I can still lift, so that's good (although maybe I ought not have goals that are related to body weight because at this rate I'll never keep up), but I'm having problems climbing.  I'm worried for my fingers like I've never been before.  I'm getting new pains in one of my already bad fingers, and I jarred one of pinkies a long time ago and it won't heal... I actually had to tape it up last night.  I'm starting to tape my bad fingers when I lift, too.  While I know I need to work on my finger strength really badly of late, I'm scared that I've already put too much stress on them and that any more will put me over the edge.  Climbing is something that keeps me sane in the way nothing else I've ever found does.  Climbing poorly, as I've been doing for over a year now since moving is a slow heartbreak, and while I keep working on trying to regain just the joy of climbing and have phases of doing that, I don't think I could keep at it indefinitely if I stalled here forever.  I'm starting to think that maybe I'm too old for this.

I'm having a really hard time now that I've let doubt slip in and take hold.  I think it was inevitable with the steady increase in weight and pain I've been having.  I don't really know how to hold the dark cloud back anymore.

You must all think I'm bipolar or flighty or something.  I'm typically not.  Maybe it's just exhaustion because it's been a couple of crazy weeks at the lab again (including something that has me here babysitting cells in the middle of the night for the next few days).  Maybe it was an excess of caffeine when I was feeling good.  Whatever it is, I need a little kind and sweet kick in the ass or something.  ...and some more tape for my fingers.