Day 5 - The Inevitable

I woke up this morning after a restless night. My soft palate hurt and my nose was stuffed. Well, that explains why I was feeling so crappy yesterday. I'm not sure why, but usually within a week of starting an exercise routine, I come down with something. I have a theory on why this happens. Exercise stresses your body and lowers your ability to fight infection. Plus, any additional stress you already have in your life is going to be taking a toll as well. I'm sure there's actual scientific documentation to back this up, but I'll leave that to you guys to look up. Either way, I am 5 days into this and I am catching a cold.

This brought me to an interesting crossroad this morning. Do I call the 30 day experiment on account of catching a cold and spend the day laying on the couch or do I walk to work like I normally would and just push through it? I opted for somewhere in the middle.

I am just dealing with the start of a cold, so it reallyis not bad enough for me to stay home from work. And if I am well enough to go to work, I am probably well enough to do some walking. Walking a mile and a half in 44 degree weather with a wind chill just did not sound appealing though. So I drove to work. With some easy math though, I figured out I can still get 10,000 steps today, I just need to do it gently.

500 steps is not bad. It's a short walk. It takes five minutes. It gets your blood moving. It's not long enough for me to get out of breath, but I feel like I've done something. I figure that if I do 500 steps 20 times today I am good. That's like a little 5 minute walk every half an hour. That's doable and easy and I still have plenty of time to work and drink my Gypsy Cold Remedy tea with honey, take Emergen-C and cover myself in Thieves Oil. I am totally going to fight this cold!

I also found this article from WebMD. It's about the benefits of walking on your immune system and also, exercising when you have a cold - because I did do a little bit of research.

http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/cold-guide/exercise-when-you-have-cold#1

And, since I am continuing the experiment, that means I still get to tally up my stats!

Stats:

Distance: Just 5 miles yesterday, but I have now gone a total of 24 miles.

Mood: Optimistic. I have cold, but I am working through it. I would like to think that all this walking is boosting my immune system so the cold won't be as bad as it could be.

Sleep: Restless last night, but a Mountain Dew Kickstart this morning help with that.

Today's Motivation:

It sounds silly, but I am grateful to have 10,000 steps to walk today. It gives me something to do other than to sit and feel sorry for myself because I am catching a cold. That's a vicious cycle when it gets started. I feel sorry for myself and don't do anything and then I start beating myself up because I am not doing anything and then I feel more sorry for myself. Not a good place. Hippocrates was right. "Walking is man's best medicine."