What about knowing when to cut back?

austincrx

I haven't found much in the way of mental health on the forum, but I am wondering if there are any good tips or articles about knowing when you are trying to do too much. By that I mean reduced calories, regular exercise, fast paced work environment, ample 'things that need to be done at home' (like yard work and improvement projects), and very little 'free-time'. All this compounding together to make a person exhausted and fatigued little-bit by little-bit until KABOOM (kaboom could be anything from sickness to giving up on the whole weightlosshealthyeating thing).

I usually get 4 hours of exercise per week between the gym and riding my bike, but not always. And on the days I do a workout in the afternoon (to try to get more sleep by not waking for an early morning gym workout) I get everything ready for the next day and have sometimes only 15 minutes before I need to head up to bed to get a good night's sleep. Even when I don't do a workout sometimes I only have 15-30 minutes of time that I can sit down and de-stress. But the whole time I am destressing I am thinking about how much I want to just relax instead of going straight to bed. Of course if I stay up for an hour then I only get 6.5-7 hours of sleep and that along with the fast-paced day-to-day I think is just causing me to be constantly fatigued.

Or maybe I need to just push through it.

My gut says that I shouldn't be this worn out all the time.
The tiredness makes you short-tempered, less will-power, lower motivation, hard to focus, lower performance in general, etc.

So how does one start to 'correct' this? Maybe I really am doing too much, but the only thing that can 'go' is exercise, as everything else is literally a necessity other than a few home improvement projects here and there (but you gotta stay on top of those or they will pile-up). I don't really want stop exercising, I enjoy it.

Can I get someone's outside opinion please?

kimny72

Unfortunately, fatigue can result from all sorts of things.

4 hours of exercise isn't excessive on the surface.

6.5-7 hours of sleep would be enough for some, but others certainly need more. Maybe you should prioritize getting an extra 15 mins - 30 mins for a couple of weeks and see if it helps.

You could be undereating. What are your height and weight, and how many calories are you eating?
Have you given up anything recently (caffeine, smoking, specific foods)?

Have you had a checkup recently? Do you have kids in school that might have brought home some random bug?

pinuplove

Additionally, what is eating up all your time? The activities you listed are pretty standard for most adults. Do you work very long hours? Have an unusually long commute? Children with various evening and weekend activities?

austincrx

kimny72 wrote: »

Unfortunately, fatigue can result from all sorts of things.

4 hours of exercise isn't excessive on the surface.

6.5-7 hours of sleep would be enough for some, but others certainly need more. Maybe you should prioritize getting an extra 15 mins - 30 mins for a couple of weeks and see if it helps.

You could be undereating. What are your height and weight, and how many calories are you eating?
Have you given up anything recently (caffeine, smoking, specific foods)?

Have you had a checkup recently? Do you have kids in school that might have brought home some random bug?

4hours per week of exercise is definitely not much, and it's only a fraction of what I was doing 2-3+ years ago, but I have a 2-year old and am trying to focus more on my career so that is understandably taking a lot of time.
My work days are not anything odd, 40 hrs per week or there abouts.
As for giving things up, I have given up Colas and cut way back on processed sugars (like corn syrup), but I don't think that is the problem. I don't think I'm undereating, but I have not been keeping track of my calories very well, and after logging my planned food for today it is about 600 calories less than my goal on MFP. So I am going back to logging every day now.
Shooting for just a little extra sleep every night sounds like a good way to do it, it's a step in the right direction and a small goal is a more attainable one.

pinuplove wrote: »

Additionally, what is eating up all your time? The activities you listed are pretty standard for most adults. Do you work very long hours? Have an unusually long commute? Children with various evening and weekend activities?

My commute on Monday, Thursday and Friday can be long because I could have daycare duty in both the morning and afternoon depending on my wife's work schedule and location. She switches between 3 different vet hospitals in the city, but our house is on the far north, daycare on the far south, and one of the hospitals is on the far west side, but my work is also on the far west side.
Here's a quick summary of my days:
I work 8-5, and have a 35 minute commute each way. If I have daycare duty in the morning then I get in late and work through lunch. If I have daycare duty in the afternoon I leave at 5:10, get to daycare at 5:50, get home at 6:30-6:45 depending on traffic. If I don't have daycare duty in the afternoon I try to ride my bike for 45 minutes to an hour 1-2 times during the week (once Tues/Wed and once Thurs/Fri). Once home it's cook/heat up dinner, feed myself and the baby girl (that takes 30 minutes on a good day, no rushing a 2-year old), head up for a bath, give her some milk, read books, get her to bed (now it's 8:15-8:45pm), get baby's bag ready for daycare the next day, get my own bag ready for the next day (it's probably 9-9:15 now). There is going to be something extra that needs to be done, always is. Ranging from fixing a flat tire (last week actually) to mowing grass (because sometimes your only opportunity is on a Monday evening for whatever reason) to other things. So now it's probably 9:45pm.
If there is something major, then it is pushed to the weekend, but the weekend is only so long and if you want family time, then you need to maximize your free time during the week when the baby is asleep, you know?
Sometimes traffic is really crazy on the way home from daycare (usually because no one knows how to drive in the rain around here) and we don't get home until 7 or later. Those are the days when we finish getting everything ready for the next day and it's basically 10pm.

I'm not really sure what to do to change the routine so there is more down time. My wife certainly does a lot as well, so it's not like it's all one person or anything. We did make a pact that we wouldn't work on any major projects during the week because there just wasn't enough time, and we learned that he hard way last week.


I'm sure there are a ton of others who have the same time-crunch going on, I just don't hear about it and maybe that's because it's normal or I'm just trying to do something different from everyone else.

kimny72

OP, if you are accidentally under-eating, gave up caffeinated soda, and not getting quite enough sleep, that could totally do it. Start tracking for a bit to make sure you are eating enough, have a cup of coffee and try to prioritize a little extra sleep Good luck!

pinuplove

The 2-year-old explains a lot Parents of 2-year-olds are just usually tired no matter what

Finding a daycare closer to home or work might help, but I know that's easier said than done! Good daycares are hard enough to get into as it is. Having a daycare 5 minutes from my house saved my sanity back in the those days, though.