I've been out of the gym since before Christmas of last year. Not because of slacking....but due to a fucking flu that seemed to take forever to shake off. I'm still not 100% but I'm no longer hacking, coughing, sneezing, and generally being okay if I just fell down and died at any moment so I would be out of my misery.
Being sick sucks. It also places your training in jeopardy with what I call demotivation creep. This is where you miss a workout, then it becomes easier the next day to skip a workout, then the next, then a week and...before you know it....several months have passed and you have wasted your money on a gym membership that you hardly used. Happens all the time and I've seen it happen with many people. It's why gyms are full of highly motivated folks in January and virtually deserted by March.
This happens with illness as well. Lots of people get sick around this time of year. Flu, colds, leftover holiday foods percolating with salmonella...this is the time when many of us get laid out with one ailment or another. After being away from working out for a couple of days, or couple of weeks, it is so easy to slip right back into those old comfortable habits of overeating and inactivity. I mean....you eat, whatever, usually comfort foods....and you lay in bed or sit back and think about all the muscle that is just melting away.
By the time you start to feel half-way healthy again, you really don't feel muscular anymore. The painfully gained muscle from day after day of effort just goes away. The inertia of going every day is gone. The passion has fizzled.
THAT is one of the biggest demotivational things to hit. More important than ever during this time to get back into training as soon as possible. Delay is deadly to gains. What is lost can be had again.....but ya gotta get it....just like you had to in the beginning.
I'm beginning again. Sucks, really sucks, but there it is.
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