I wanted to have an honest conversation with you guys (I hope you will join up in the comments) today about the hardest thing about prepping.

So much of prepping is “relatively” easy. I’ve seen James Wesley Rawles call it the 3 B’s – beans, bullets, and bandages.  Food and clean water, protection, and first aid.

Even for use where we are now.  We’ve got a decently stocked basement.  Finally, we have a (what feels like our first real) garden!  I have several ways to preserve produce – water-bath canning, pressure canning, and dehydrating.  Way to purify water?  Check!  We could heat our house with wood if necessary.  We have a couple of totes of first aid supplies, and we can protect ourselves if push came to shove.

Getting stuff is easy.  Learning to use stuff is a bit harder.  It takes time to learn how to use a firearm.  It takes time to learn how to light a fire, but it’s still relatively easy to learn.  Gardening definitely takes time to learn – sometimes years because things don’t always go wrong the first year.  Your garden can throw new curveballs at you each year.  Learning to pressure can is a little bit of a challenge, and making your own soap isn’t hard, but it still takes effort.

Gathering your supplies, learning to use your gadgets, and learning how to do things for yourself takes time, but the hardest part of prepping isn’t one of those things.

The hardest part of prepping is preparing yourself

physically, mentally, and emotionally!

Prepping Physically

Most of us aren’t into running half marathons 1-2 times a year.  Most of us think that being “active” is enough to be physically be prepared.  Ask me how I know.  I’ve been overweight my whole life, and right now, according to BMI index, I would fall into the morbidly obese category.  I went on my first diet when I was in third grade.   I lost weight easily when I was in high school.  In college, one summer I lost 20 pounds without trying because I was power walking to my summer job for 10 minutes three times a day.

More recently, I’ve tried various approaches to weight loss.   I’ve done Trim Healthy Mama, Keto, the GAPS diet, calorie counting, and even Noom.  I never took more than 3-5 pounds off after multiple months, and it would go right back on.  I had walked off and on before, but never really pushed myself.  We purchased a commercial grade treadmill and I used it here and there.

That was then.  This is now.

So this time I was going to come at life from an exercise driven approach.  Two months ago, however, I decided enough was enough.  I was going to walk.  My goal was to walk fifty miles in one month.  The first month, our family had a working vacation.  I made it to 44 miles that month.  Spending 6+ hours in a car two days in a row doesn’t do much for a person’s ability to walk 2 miles or more a day.  This month as of the writing of this article, I have three days left (I started on May 21st), and I have walked 46 miles so far.

So let’s put some feet on this. 

I have walked 90 miles since April 19th. Yes, that’s right N-I-N-E-T-Y. Guess how much weight I’ve lost.  Go ahead and guess.  I’ve not changed my eating at all, but I’ve way upped my activity level.  I’ve lost a whopping ZERO pounds.  Yep.  Walked 90 miles, didn’t increase my food intake, and I’ve lost no weight.  I’ve also been working to walk faster.  I’m not taking leisurely walks (except when I’m walking the dog and he slows me way down, but that’s by far NOT the majority of my walking).  I’m walking between 3.0-3.3 miles per hour.  I’ve even started jogging small portions of the 2 miles that I walk.  Slow and steady wins the race, right?  Not for me this time.

Let’s talk about something else.  One of the reasons that I started walking as much as I have was to lower my blood pressure.  I’ve been on low-level blood pressure medicines 3 times during my life.  I was always able to get my blood pressure back under control through various means – extra water intake, reducing stress, taking magnesium etc.  Well this time, even with walking, drinking extra water, magnesium, AND taking my blood pressure medicine, my blood pressure has gone UP!

Yes, I am currently working with a doctor through all of this.  Yes, I’ve had my thyroid tested (on multiple occasions).  No, I’m not giving up.  Walking has become a part of my life.  I walk every day that I can find 1-1 1/2 in my schedule – it takes a girl time to change put on shoes and get cleaned up afterward.  My goal is to walk 6 days a week, but never on Sunday.  I’ve met that goal for 6 of the last 8 weeks.  The other two weeks, I walked 5 times.

But no one is talking about the fact if we don’t deal with these things now, it could very easily be too late to deal with them if the crap hits the rotating wind device.

What about you?

My point is this – you may think that if something hard happens – if the S really does hit the fan – you may think that your increased activity and work may just be what your body needs to deal with your issues.  It may not be.  Dealing with health issues may not be as easy as you are expecting it to be.  Deal with them NOW.

How long has it been since you’ve had a physical?  How long has it been since you’ve had comprehensive bloodwork drawn?  Do you exercise regularly – and I do mean regularly as in 3-5 times a week or more?  If you aren’t physically active now, how do you think you’re going to transition to being physically active if we experience TEOTWAWKI?  You may be left in the dust even if you are a skinny couch potato.

Prepping Emotionally

Did you know that 1 out of every six adults in the United States takes some sort of psychiatric drug?  Most of those are antidepressants.  Are you one of that number?  I know for a fact that people who are put onto psychiatric drugs are told NOT to go off of them without a doctors approval (so don’t think I’m telling anyone reading this article that they should stop taking prescribed meds – I’m not).  I say all of that to make a point.  Anxiety is at historic levels in this country – even for people who aren’t taking drugs for it.

If we, as a country are anxious during a time of (relative) peace, what are we going to do when our neighbors turn on us (if we haven’t already brought them into our prepping fold). How will our anxiety levels be then?  My primary care doctor put me on progesterone.  I was having classic low progesterone symptoms.  While progesterone has stopped my going into full-blown panic attacks, I’m still experiencing anxiety attacks from time to time.  This is HUGELY better than it was before.  Even something emotional can have links back to the physical – that is why getting yourself checked out is so important!

If you struggle with anxiety, have you looked into things you can do NOW – again, our focus should be on NOW.  We have to get a handle on these things before something huge and problematic is thrown at us.   Here’s an article that gives you 10 natural ways to combat fear and anxiety.   Here is another article on natural ways to fight back against anxiety.

Prepping Mentally

Prepping mentally gets more ‘air time’ if you will than either of the other two categories, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be included in the hardest part about prepping.  Mental preparedness is hard, but there are specific steps that you can take to help yourself prepare mentally.

Preparing mentally has to start with what you have and what you know.

Are you honestly prepared?  I’m not talking about being prepared for the zombie apocalypse.  Instead, I’m talking about are you prepared for that 4-5 day power outage after that nasty summer or winter storm.  Have you taken small steps now to learn how to grow your own food, so if you had to grow more, you’re at least somewhat familiar with what you’re doing?

When we know that we have our ducks in a row, we tend to panic less, which means we can better handle whatever is being thrown at us.

Mentally work through potential scenarios 

After we had survived a tornado and the Ferguson riots, never did I dream that we would get attacked by a young adult with a knife.  But when that did happen, I froze.  Why?  Because I didn’t expect something like that to happen to me (and my five kids) when it did.  I hadn’t thought through what I would do if we were cornered in a room – no matter what the weapon was.  We don’t think through these things often.

An (honestly) fun way of thinking through crazy scenarios is by playing the game Worst Case Scenario or the card game.  They throw truly bizarre situations at you and give you 4 choices for what the best way of getting out of it is!

Need more suggestions on mental preparedness?  I have a whole article on it here.

What About You?

What are your thoughts on your physical, mental, and emotional preparedness?  Do you think that they are talked about enough?  Where do you struggle in those areas?  Please share this with us in the comments, so that we can all be better prepared.

 Together lets Love, Learn, Practice, and Overcome

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