I did it, I rested.

I did not do any exercise, I did some walking but not much.

And, you know what, it is okay! 

I had a hard time deciding to take a genuine actual rest day, but we need them sometimes. Rest days actually help performance apparently, they allow your body to heal and fix its self and can actually lead to an increase in performance. 

I chose the sensible route for once, I managed to pick up a slight muscle strain in my chest / shoulder (probably related to the bicep thing that is healing) and it meant that it hurt to breathe. I cam to the conclusion that breathing was important and exercising while I was only really capable of shallow breathing led to dizziness and possibly falling over. 

I didn’t want that…

so I thought of you lovely people and what I would tell you if you wanted a rest day…

and I ignored myself because apparently it is impossible to follow your own advice.

so I asked Nancy from My Years of Sweat and she saw into my head straight away and reminded me that I was not the same person I was 418 days ago. 

I am no longer the person who would let 1 rest day become a week then a month then eat all the food in the world…

Nancy pointed out that I have done my statement 365 and proved I can and that because of it I have come out a stronger person, one who can be sensible enough to take one day of rest without falling back into old habits. 

I realised then that this is my new lifestyle and I don’t actually want to stop exercising, I don’t want to stop living healthierly (shhh that is a word) and there is no reason I should be scared to give my body time to heal if it needs it.

It also occurred to me that, the reason I have been having so many little annoying injuries and tiredness and such recently might be exactly because of my lack of rest days…

It probably doesn’t need an entire blog post to explain one rest day, but even at the end of the day when I went to bed, I felt I should be leaping up to do some squats for fear of letting you all down!

I didn’t do any by the way…I went to sleep instead!

Maybe it is a Thursday thing!