I got a new Mac Mini, and then days turned to months until I realised I have, yet again neglected my blog. Nobody is reading this so it's all good ahahaha.
Well nothing much has happened. Mostly I've been spending time making some changes to my lifestyle. One of it, is establishing my 'non-negotiables'.
I've been keeping my fitness for most of my adult life. In a fateful evening of summer Jan 2024, I fell from a dog attack (not my fault, of course and the dog was big), twisted my right knee and sprained it. I screamed in pain. Around that time I was training Calistehics, and was trying to achive pullups and pistol squat. However, no thanks to the knee injury, I didn't pistol squat (or any squat) was cancelled. At that point I was quite demotivated because everytime I workout I was reminded of my knee pain.
Until Winter came and it was all too difficult to workout at home. So I didn't workout for months and was eating garbage.
Knee injury is no joke OK. I lost range of motion for close to a year. I had to modify the way I pray -and obviously no jumping or running of any sort. NO SQUATS! (unbelievable).
I once fell (well I jumped, actually) out of the car because I was in a hurry and that was OUCH really painful and scared my parents. Climbed monkey bar, and fell? OUCH, my knee.š« It actually made me scared to be active (well, other than scared of dogs now š)
Needless to say, I now have a newfound deep empathy to whoever dealing with knee pain (poor grandma). š«” Like, I feel you. hugs
Anywayyyyssss, after a few rounds of chiro and doing physiotherapy exercises -I got an ultrasound done. The doctor confirmed the injury will take more than 6 months to heal with supplements. Well, isn't that good news.
At the end of the year, I said enough is enough. I needed to accept that I'm the type of person who goes to the gym instead of working out at home. Signed up for the gym and started going. It was school holidays, so it was easy to keep the routine.
When school started, everything started to become shaky.
To make it at the gym, I had to wakeup super early. So I was always on and off during the school term.
in May 2025, I had a bad week. Too many deadlines and driving test was driving me nuts. At that point, I had skipped gym for weeks. I was in a viscious negative cycle of 'not wanting to do anything' to 'making things worse coz I wasn't doing anything'. I started getting insomnias, and migraines. Obviously those are making things even worse now.
Look, I've been in enough therapy to know better. I should do something to get OUT of the doom loop and turn it into a positive cycle.
That's when I decided, NO MORE.
There are two 'non-negotiables' I've decided:
- Bed by 9.30pm (so that I can be awake by 6.00am)
- Going to the gym 5-6x weekly, eventhough I really didn't feel like it.
The two above are inter-related. Early morning is the only time I'm able to fit my gym time. I tried in the evening, but it felt so disruptive to my daily routine and works that I kept skipping gym. After gym, I go home, get the girls ready for school (aka prepare their lunchboxes) and then I'm off to start my day.
The other issue I had is that I realised, when I don't take care of my body, my mental health retaliates. I could find myself easily sucked in by anxiety and spiralling over never-ending problems. I figured, there is no way I could correctly avoid any kind of problems in life or at work. BUT I can control my reaction and train my resilience. and that's what exercising is doing to my mental health.
So, now, I'm taking my supplements for my knee religiously and started focusing on rebuilding strength. Yes, that means at 6.30am you'll find me in the gym, 5-6x a week. My husband thinks I'm crazy.
Fast forward to somehwere in June, about 3 weeks ago, I was playing with the kids and some of their friends. They challenged me to a sprint.
I couldn't refuse. I knew my knee might hurt. But I thought it would be fun to crush those girls' ego. HAHA. It was 12-year-olds against a 34-yr-old me. I am way beyond my prime and couldn't run as fast anymore. Fair play, right?
We sprinted, (I won, albeit by a small margin).
But the real win was that my knee didn't hurt?? Not immediately. Not the next day. Not a few days after.
Wait. What??
In my next gym session, I tested my knee with weighted squat.
Bulgarian squat which previously would make my right knee scream. IT š DID š NOT š HURT š
ALHAMDULILLAH.
š£š£ Pistol squat training is back on, people! Woots! š£š£
This journey of recovery is exactly the reminder I needed that persistence is important. Sometimes it may seem like your effort is going nowhere, but keeping going in the right direction and you'll eventually get there. Check the mirror sometimes to make sure that you're in the right path. At best, you achieve. At worse, you learn.
