When it's OK to "miss a Monday"

Go hard or go home

I will rest when I am dead

Suck it up buttercup

No days off

Never miss a Monday

All of these are fun little sayings for workout tank tops but not mantras to live by. To be honest, I own a few of these "snarky" workout tshirts and love them;)  I have always been really hard on myself, pushing myself in every area of my life, sometimes to pure exhaustion. Doing this for years, who am I kidding, DECADES landed me in major hormonal chaos which I am still working to recover from. 

Yesterday(Monday) I was really tired. I hadn't slept well over the weekend and with the Spring forward time change that meant my body still thought it was 3am when I got up yesterday instead of my usual 4am. I got through my day at work, and it was going to be leg day at the gym(I love leg day- no really- I do!) so I really wanted to go. For years I went to the gym even when I was exhausted just so I wouldn't feel the guilt of not going. Some might call this dedicated, and that's what I thought too. A badge of honor. Determined. Dedicated. Motivated. However it did NOTHING to improve my health, my physique or my strength, it just taxed my already worn out adrenals just a little more. 

So yesterday that old voice popped back into my head. Should I go workout? If I just go get it over with then I can keep on track for the weekly workouts I had planned. Then my rational brain kicked in and I realized there was no way I SHOULD go lift weights. You see I didn't say COULD, but SHOULD. Yes I very well could have physically dragged myself to the gym, done a subpar workout and stayed "on schedule" for the week. The old me would have done exactly that.  

BUT the me that now has the knowledge that cortisol regulation is more important to my long term health than missing one workout, I came home and relaxed with my kiddo.

Sleep deprivation(yes, even one night) leads to increased cortisol, dysregulation of blood sugar, increased inflammation, and longer recovery time from exercise. Our hormones regulate everything(more to come on this in another blog post!)!

"Insulin sensitivity occurs at night. Your body becomes more sensitive to insulin during sleep. This is so profound that if you look at people who are sleep deprived, what you see is that they have a decrease in insulin sensitivity so just one single night of sleep deprivation causes a 40% reduction in your ability to handle your glucose.” -Dr. Mary Pardee

It's OK to miss a workout, take a day off, reschedule that cycle class and just rest. Pushing yourself physically when you have not slept, or are sick will potentially do more damage to your health than good. 

Give yourself permission to listen to your body, not to the Instagram model or personal trainer that tells you to just push through no matter what. There is a difference between commitment and obsession and sometimes it's a fine line.