Today's choice: I choose to be happy that I have knowledge and can act on that knowledge to improve things for myself.
It seems I’ve developed something called exercise-induced anaphylaxis. Last summer, I started a program (that I made up myself) to become a runner – I went to the beautiful park we have here and started walking, then at certain points of the walk I would run 10 steps and stop. The next week I ran 20-step intervals, the week after 30. You get the picture. However, some days my eyes would swell up almost to the point of being swelled shut. I do have allergies to certain trees, so I figured it was that and just put in eye drops and took an antihistamine and continued on. Of course, as I usually do, I dropped it after a while.
Come the fall, I try to take it up again. Again my eyes swelled up – I had to wear sunglasses to work because I looked like I had been punched in the face. The swelling takes a day or so to go down, and it’s unpleasant and ugly. But I still thought it was basic allergies.
After Christmas 2014, I took a bite of pita and went out one morning to start up (I’m a chronic starter. Like Don Draper, I only like the beginning of things). Both my eyes swelled up immediately. This made no sense. Why would I be suffering from seasonal allergies in the winter? Also, I wasn’t sneezing and congested like I usually am with allergies. I went home and googled “eyes swell during exercise” and came up with a good number of hits that described what was happening with me. I believe that I have the food-triggered type of this problem since I have periodically been able to work out without my eyes swelling. This is what it looks like: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/uk-woman-diagnosed-allergic-exercise-article-1.1297236 (not me obviously, but it looks just like that, sometimes one eye, sometimes the other).
Yesterday was a fast day – I’m doing the 5:2 plan and love it – and I’m also trying not to sit all the time, so I’ve been riding my exercise bike for a couple of minutes each hour (like I climb the stairs and do light weights every hour when I’m at work). I had no problem doing the short, two-minute rides. I believed that it would take longer for the swelling to kick in so I didn’t take an antihistamine before. After my 500-calorie salad, I did a two-minute ride and I could feel my left eye start to swell. I immediately took an antihistamine and it seemed to stop it.
All this is weird to me since 20 years ago I used to spend a couple hours a day at the gym and this wasn’t an issue, although I would sometimes get a little wheezy during cardio if I raised my arms above my head. It appears that many of us of Scottish descent have an issue with chronic inflammation, so that’s what I’m blaming this on.
Any way, as my personal mentor (ha!) Tony Robbins says, recognize the situation realistically for what it is, don’t emotionalize it. So this is what it is. It’s irritating since I’m trying to get this weight off, but I’m glad I know at base what is causing my issue and I can take prophylactic measures. As the weather warms and sunrise starts coming early enough for me to run again, I’ll simply run before eating anything and take an antihistamine (or I’ll try half one – I hate being on meds) and do what I do.
I choose to be glad that I know what this thing is and see ways around it. I can work with this.