So I had the weirdest thing happen to me after I worked out on Monday. You’ll have to let me know if it’s happened to you too. It’s crazy! So here’s what happened… I am now nine months out from surgery and I’ve finally been released to do pretty much whatever I want and I have been dying to get in a real cardio workout where I sweat, really sweat. A friend of mine and her daughter met me at the gym on Monday. We did about 30 minutes on the treadmill, mine was set at a speed of 3.5, which is a good pace for a walk with a little incline. I’m getting over a shin splint so I can’t jog yet. I hate those things!
Anyway, we moved on to our ab workout! Her daughter and I did the Power Tower which I didn’t even think I could do and I managed to do fifteen! I was so pumped! Then we did the Russian Twist machine and another ab machine. Not too bad right? Next came the PF360 room. I love that room! We had an instructor come in and show us how to use some of the equipment and then we went to work. We rotated between the battle ropes (only 30 seconds at a time) and the bounce back with a 4-pound ball and did pulldowns. So that was killer but fun!
This was the first time I really worked up a true sweat in forever! I felt great, sweaty, a little sore from working out, but it was awesome! I really felt like for the first time in years that I was going to be able to get back to working out like I did before blowing out my knee and tearing my quad. But later on that evening, I started to not feel so great. I didn’t exactly feel sick, but not right either. My quads starting twitching and they did it all night long. I felt a little dizzy, nauseous, headache chills and the weirdest feeling of all hit me. I felt like I was coming down with sun poisoning. You know that feeling of being in the sun all day and you’ve gotten a bad sunburn where you feel like you’re burned on the inside? That’s how I felt like my insides had been sunburned or that I was running a fever and I checked and I had a 99.5 fever.
It went on all night and I couldn’t sleep. At one point I was ready to go to the emergency room. It was so strange because I knew I wasn’t sick and didn’t feel like I was coming down with anything. So what in the world was wrong with me? Then it hit me! This was the hardest workout I’d had in years and even though I felt great when I was finished, apparently, my body didn’t agree with me as much as I thought it did. My body changed its mind later and said “nope!” this was too much. I did some research and found out that I had indeed pushed too hard, too soon and I was also more than likely dehydrated some too. This could have been much worse, but it was enough to really scare me. From what I read online this could have been lactic acidosis, dehydration, or exertion heat illness, or just working out way too hard. What I read was really scary and I probably should have gone to the doctor, but since my symptoms hit me several hours after my workout, it was too late to go anywhere but to the emergency room and I didn’t feel like spending fours hours waiting to be seen.
So I spent the next day resting, I was really wiped out from what happened and not sleeping anyway. I made sure to drink plenty of water and eat. I also took the next couple of days off from working out and didn’t go back till the end of the week. When I did workout again, I went at it slowly and only did a few things. I am from here on out, going to build back up slowly. I never want to go through that again. Learn from me, please listen to your body. When starting to workout again after a long break, take it easy and don’t jump in full force just because the doctor gives you the green light. I almost wound up in the E.R. because of it.
I even posted on the Fitbit community to see if anyone there had heard of this and of course they had. Everyone that responded told me that I had done too much, too soon and to back off some, get plenty of water and to make sure I was getting enough nutrition. I had a couple people suggest that it could have been lactic acidosis or just that because of all the damage to my knees and still recovering from knee surgery that it sent my body into shock. My daughter also reminded me that I am not 20 years old anymore, (insert huge sigh here) and that I have Ehlers-Danlos and along with the Epstein Barr that I already deal with, then add on double knee surgery, I have to realize that my body is just going to fight against me sometimes.
I have to agree with her, whatever caused me to feel that way after working out, I have definitely been fighting my own body lately. It’s so frustrating when you feel like you can do things but your body slaps you back and says no! But that’s ok because I plan to win. Starting this week I am really going to take a look at my nutrition, water intake or lack thereof, and my workouts. I am going to get back into shape, it just might take me a little longer than I want it to and somehow I’m just going to have to accept that and be good with it. This is a marathon, not a sprint! So have you been through anything like this? How have you overcome weight loss and working out when your body fights against you? I would love to hear your thoughts! 
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