Weight Log: 14 - Some form of permanently exhausted pigeon
Published: 2021-09-17 // Progress since last post: +1.0 kgLatest recorded weight:
178.5 kg - 393.5 lb - 28 stone and 1.5 lb - BMI: 55.1
A couples of days late.
As the title suggests, this post is a few days late. I feel like some form of permanently exhausted pigeon right now and its really messing me up. On top of being exhausted in general, I’ve had to cut down my intermittent fasting from 18 hours to 17 hours as I was starting to feel dizzy deep into fasting. This along with the exhaustion was not a good combo. The exhaustion/burn out (whatever you want to call it.) has resulted in me not going to the gym for the past 3 weeks. Too many external stressors right now and I’m losing focus. Things will be clearing up stressor wise soon but the struggle is real right now.
Diet ↑↓ / Mental willpower 😫 / Exercise ✗
With all that said, let’s talk mental health.
Let’s talk about stressors, mental energy and a popular metaphor to describe how it feels when dealing with an energy-limiting chronic illness, including mental illness.
Spoon Theory & Fork Theory.
Spoon theory is a metaphor that is used to describe the amount of mental or physical energy a person has available for daily activities and tasks. Spoons are a representation of units of energy that a person might have. A spoon doesn’t have to be only physical energy but also encompasses mental energy. You wake with a certain number of spoons and how many you have depend on so many variables such as you the individual, your condition and your environment. It’s not always the same and will vary often daily. Ever woken up “on the wrong side of bed”? Then you know the feeling.
Alright so following the metaphor so far?
Throughout the day, you spend those spoons on tasks. When I say tasks, this can be anything. Brushing your teeth might be one spoon. Preparing lunch could be three. A day’s work might be six or more. Costs again vary (the individual, their condition etc). What is a trivial task one day may be quite costly the next and so on.
Example: Ever wake up and can’t be arsed to have breakfast? That morning, the spoon cost of preparing and eating breakfast was too high to justify the spoon expense.
To a person with limited spoons, this can mean making choices between daily activities to make it to the end of the day with some spoons remaining. Being severely low on spoons can even make future tasks difficult and costly. Spoons are only recovered by rest and being low on spoons can sometimes make sleep hard, leaving you with fewer spoons than expected even when rested.
But what about forks?
Forks are stressors. You can only cope with so many stuck in you before you hit your limit and their very presence can limit your ability to spend and recover spoons. Anything that makes you feel worse can be a fork. Even something as little as feeling hungry right up to BIG life stressors like financial or relationship stress. When you hit your limit, you’re done. You cannot handle any more. Having too many forks can mean you can’t access your spoons, even if you’re full up. Removing forks themselves is often a costly task. Example: Remember a moment you just had to deal with something and felt so drained after? That’s the cost of removing a fork.
The quantity and size of forks one person might deal with varies greatly of course. You may be tolerant of any number of tiny forks stuck in you, but a single pitchfork can destroy you in one go. On the flip side, you might be able to tolerate a huge fork but it leaves very little room for smaller ones. The phrase “straw that breaks the camel’s back” can apply here. Ever worry about something big, carry that stress around for something small and stupid like burning toast break you? Now you’re getting it.
Cutlery conclusion.
With that brief on Spoon Theory & Fork Theory, hopefully you’ll understand me when I say: I am rammed full of forks and burning all my spoons on my work & commute.
“Your commute?” Yes. Nothing stresses me more than being late to things. Yet with hugher number of large tractors, cyclists and school run mums running around country roads and towns it does get stressful. Recently due to these outside factors it’s taken me an extra 20 mins to get to work and it is already an hour commute each way.
Work is good, I love my job but right now most of my spoons are burnt completing my work day. Doesn’t help that the next three Sundays I am also on call meaning my only true day of rest is my Weekend Wednesday for a while.
(Although not this Wednesday but that is for a great reason so I don’t mind 😄)
Getting home after all that, I got nothing left in me. Sucks but give me a few weeks and these forks will be yeeted out of me.
So yeah… This post has taken me 2 extra days to get down and turned into a rant about my commute and a metaphor on mental health. Hopefully I will be able to pull out these fork stressors and regain some energy spoons soon but until then, here is the gif:~
I’m going to rest now, goodnight!
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