Lifestyle change update

**wrote this yesterday evening but finally getting around to posting it.

For the last 2 months I have been working on a major lifestyle change...at least it's a major change for me. I have been trying to get my health in order. I have some health issues that really affect my day to day life. I have fibromyalgia (basically I have body pain all. the. time. including flare ups where eh pain stops me from using 1 or up to all 4 of my limbs). I also have anxiety and depression which affect me every day in a range of ways. Because of all of these things and having a busy mind that doesn't shut off easily I get very little sleep. My body doesn't seem to know how to rest. I take medication for my anxiety and it does help me fall asleep but I don't stay asleep. Last week I fell asleep on the couch watching a show and when Steve woke me to go to bed I went from a deep sleep to being wide awake and then unable to get back to sleep for hours.

Anyway....I am finally buckling down and taking matters into my own hands and working on getting healthy. I have been told so many times that exercise can help all of these things and yet I always have an excuse as to why now wasn't a good time to start working out. First I was pregnant, then I had a baby who never slept, then I was pregnant again and had a newborn who needed to be fed throughout the night and my oldest was still waking at night....I was exhausted all the time and felt like there was never a good time to start because I knew that my lfibromyalgia would get worse before it got any better.

2 months down, 3 workouts a week and so far there hasn't been much of an improvement in my overall health. I do feel less anxious (but I feel like I could easily slip back to my crazy anxious ways if e stomach flu hit our house again). I think I generally feel somewhat happier. I have less energy. My overall pain is much worse. I am not having flare ups more often but my general body pain that I feel on a daily basis has increased. Right now I am not experiencing a flare up bit as I sit here on the couch my right calf muscle and quad are aching, my mid back an chips ache, my shoulders and neck ache...it's lame to be in pain all day every day. Oh...and I have daily headaches now as well. I have lost 9 lbs and am happy about that but so far it's hard to see the reward and would be so easy to give up. Living off 2-4 hours of sleep a night is torturous.

I am now sleeping with earplugs every night so that I don't hear every little movement of the kids or steve or hear every car on the road or dog barking. It helps a bit with my sleep but my ears hurt so much in the morning.

My goal for May is to run 5kms. I registered for the Color Me Rad race and am determined to run the entire thing. Here is the issue....I have asthma and my lungs are not conditioning well. The longest I have run f or at once is 17 mins. When I run outside my lungs burn SO badly. The pain is awful. I feel like I will either pass out or throw up. I was running on the Fort to Fort Trail on Monday and I had forgotten to take my inhaler before starting my run. I felt awful pretty quickly and it took hours for my breathing and lungs to recover. I am getting so frustrated that I am not making the progress that I wanted to at the speed I wanted to. At this rate I will not be running 5kms without some walk breaks. I am doing the race with a bunch of very athletic people and I will feel like a fool if I have to walk some of it. I though 4.5 months was enough time to condition myself but my asthma is causing me problems.

I used to run well. I used to run fast. I remember in high school doing the 2400meter a few times a year in PE class and I was always one of the fastest girls. I used to run from my mom and dad's farm to murrayville and back or rollerblade there and back (they lived on 4th ave off 224 street at the time and murrayville is at 48 Ave...if you know Langley well you know that that is quite a ways....about 9 kms) Now there is no way I could do any of that. Pretty sure I will never be able to run like that again.

There is a guy who lives in our townhouse complex and he frequently goes for 50 km runs. FIFTY KILOMETRES!! People do that?!?! I was and still am in shock over that.

Needlesstosay, I am struggling with feeling like this is worth it. I am losing motivation because I feel like I am giving up a lot without gaining much. I lose out on I either dinner with my family or my down time in the evening to workout....that's no fun for me. I am in more pain. My sleep still sucks. I am having headaches regularly. Someone fell me this is worth it. Anyone out ere with similar health issues who actually find relief from working out? Will it ever come?