Health is important. No matter what you choose to do in life, it’s easier when you feel healthy, physically and psychologically. It’s also difficult.

I’ve gained about 10-12kg in the past year. I went up from 57kg to 69kg. For someone who is 1.60m tall this means that I’m overweight right now. I’m not proud of it. Partially it has to do with switching from a very physically demanding job, I used to be a mailman, to a psychologically demanding job namely addiction care.
When I was still delivering mail, which is done walking here in Holland, I felt fit and had great stamina. I made one big mistake however. When you walk for 3-5 hours a day you burn a lot of fat, but once there is no more fat to burn you star to burn muscles. To counteract this you ideally want to do strength exercises, something I neglected to do. So when I stopped working for the mail and started to get a desk job, my metabolism while resting was really really slow because I’d burned so much muscle tissue. And what happens when you essentially sit on your ass all day, even if you don’t eat more than normal? Exactly you gain weight.

It also didn’t help that my time working with addicted patients was probably one of the most stressful times of my life so far. These are people that are very unpredictable so you always need to have your guard up. I have had to deal with aggressive clients myself and when I was working there a coworker of mine go physically assaulted, leading to a burnout on her end and a big warning sign for the rest of us. Do Not Trust the clients. They are unpredictable, aggressive and unstable.
Next to this you also get to hear the most emotional, heartbreaking tales and it takes a lot of effort to steel yourself against this. I’ve heard so many things that almost reduced me to tears and I always had to keep up a mask because I was the professional, it sucked.

Stress does funny things to the body. I was perpetually tired. I would come home and go straight to bed untill dinner. I slept for over 10 hours whenever I had a day off and still feel tired. My energy was as good as gone and everyday became a chore. I never felt really relaxed. I never felt like I could really enjoy anything I did. Food started to taste bland and I felt hungry at absurd times. All this led to me being in the state I am now.
I won’t say I’m obese, because I’m not. I won’t say I’m really fat, because I’m not. But when I look in the mirror I see the extra weight and it makes me sad. Trying to get it off again has been hard. I am still low on energy in general and motivating myself to work out is a challenge all on it’s own. I try to go to the gym atleast 2 times a week, but some weeks I just can’t bring myself to go.

I hope I can somehow get some motivation to work out again. I have a few dumbells lying around that desperately need using and a steps machine that is looking at me accusingly. Maybe I’ll get on it later today. For now I’m just going to wallow a bit and kick myself over being so lazy.