Disconnected

Yesterday at the gym I glanced at the clock and realized I had no idea what time I'd gotten there or how long I'd been working out and for the shortest of moments thought how would the half hour stretch I'd done that morning count towards my daily exercise goal. I used to pay attention to all that. I used to track how long I exercised every day, how many steps I took. I used to track calories and macros, how much I slept, if my readiness level was ok, how much REM sleep I got. I used to check my heart rate countless times a day. I would feel like a failure if my stats were off or if I hadn't slept enough or stayed up too late or didn't eat enough protein or had too many carbs. I was so plugged in to external monitors that I wasn't paying attention to what was happening on the inside. 

I recently stopped wearing my Apple Watch and sleep ring. I ditched all the tracking apps. I'm starting to realize, after being without it all for awhile, just how addictive and negative all that information gathering was. And how disconnected from my body it encouraged me to be, under the guise of health and wellness. 

Being disconnected from my body, beating myself up over my weight, feeling badly about how I'm measuring up is something a recovering anorexic knows well. I spent decades berating myself and having healed from that here I was finding new ways of feeling badly about myself. Nice to have let it all go and perhaps make room for some positivity and kindness and acceptance.