You are pushing yourself already. I'm sure it took a lot of work to get to this point. Look what you have; a career; relationships with friends and family; you have taken years and years to build your body and to learn about it and bodies of others to the point that you are qualified to help them rebuild their injuries and other ailments.
The first time I encountered the idea of pulling oneself up from one's bootstraps was in an illustrated copy of "Baron Muchhausen's Stories". He was riding a horse to battle, the horse fell into a bog, so the fictional Baron grabbed himself by his own hair and as the horse wouldn't lift, he straddled it really hard and it got lifted too by the stirrups. In the story, he made it to dry land and fought and fucked to his heart's content, but we are mere real humans and we abide by the laws of physics, and chemistry, and... Time.
Bodies tick tock at their own pace. Calories in calories out, exercise hours and miles walked are all good ROUGH metrics, but you are allowed to take a day off or a week off. A funny story: when I had that god awful muscle spasm a few weeks ago, and the doctor told me to "keep going to the gym" when it's been months, at first I felt SHAME. I AM NOT ATHLETIC, I LOOK LIKE A BARREL OF TITS, HE MAKES FUN OF ME. And then I realized: he was actually telling me to keep up a good habit. Which he didn't know I had. He felt my back and could tell I weight train.
@LaMaria I'm so sure that if you were to visit any other professional in the field of science based, uh, body stuff, like a nutritionist, maybe and endo, what the fucking ever, they would tell you that you are doing your best and your best is enough. Like, more than enough. I would really love to go for a hike in the Alps with you; I'm no mountaineer but why should I be? The slopes are pretty enough. The peaks are for people who have stuff to show.
Mweheeh what a cheesy metaphor.
Have I ever shared this song with you? Or in the forum, in general? Sorry if I have; but it just speaks to the melancholy between dream and having to adapt to society. Feel free to delete the whole post if this is not what you needed.
Take care <3