I am a complete and utter failure. I'd love to get on here and say that isn't true exactly....but I am. I've been a failure, I didn't follow through and I failed. I started out on this workout routine, which I stuck to for a week....I only took one day off....and then the treadmill broke and I got my excuse.
Needless to say I have not worked out at all since then....and I have gained weight because I also stopped tracking my food like I usually do, decreased my water consumption and replaced it with diet pop and coffee. Yay for me. Yeah not so much.
So I'm a failure this week. But at least I know WHY I failed when it came to sticking to the workout routine I set for myself and why I failed when it comes to the scale.....so that is a victory in and of itself.....right? I have to remind myself that I can't expect to have a loss every week.....but of course I then remind myself back that I have lost and gained the same 3 pounds over the last month or so anyway. Then I have to remind myself that I can't expect myself to lose weight when I start working out because I'm building muscle...but lets face it, that is only partially true.
The truth is, I gave up before it was a habit. I gave up because it was hard and I wanted to have it easy....and I have paid the price on the scale for that. And I'm trying to learn that lesson and pick my big butt up and start again. You won't always have success in the forms you want to see it. You won't always have success. It IS hard. It IS hard work that takes dedication and determination and sometimes we are weak and sometimes we give up.
The only way to reverse the gaining trend I'm on right now is to refocus, rededicate, pick my big butt up and try again. As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day.....well neither was my fat butt....so it isn't going to be demolished and toned in a day, or a week either.
Yes, I will admit..... I am a complete and utter failure.......and that is ok as long as I don't let myself stay that way.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Sometimes it is hard.......
Sometimes it is hard to admit to ourselves that we are weak. We give up on ourselves so often because we don't want to face the facts that it takes hard work to get anything that is truly worth it. So we struggle for a while with things like working out or dieting and then we give up. Usually we make excuses like "I just don't have time" or "I take the stairs every day so that is my exercise". The truth is, we are weak and we are lazy....we want results with no effort. We want the magic pill that makes it all better. Sometimes it is hard to admit to ourselves that we have flaws and we will struggle, and so we set ourselves up for failure.
Sometimes it is even harder to admit that we are strong enough. It is easier to just say, "I can't" than it is to say, "I CAN". You CAN change what you don't like. You CAN be a more positive person. You CAN say no to a cookie....face it, that COOKIE has no power....you just have to practice some restraint and say no to yourself. You CAN say yes to 20 minutes of exercise, you just have to MAKE yourself do it sometimes. The truth is, until it becomes a habit it will be hard. It will be hard when you don't see results to keep going. THAT is where you have to tell yourself the honest truth...."I am strong enough to do this".
Thursday was day one of my new exercise routine...which as I said is a "four letter word" to me...and though I didn't want to some days, I have kept to my promise to myself to not take more than one day off in a week from doing it.....well so far anyway. :-) I took Sunday off. My treadmill decided not to work yesterday when my husband decided he wanted to try my workout too...which meant I couldn't do mine.....now the EASY thing would have been to just NOT work out, but I felt like I was cheating myself out of the body I DESERVE if I did that. So I got on the stationary bike instead.
The key, I have found, is to be consistent. I won't see success at ALL if I don't stick to it. What do I have to lose besides the weight? I will lose additional pain that comes from feeling like a failure. I will lose additional physical pain that the excess weight puts on my already broken and deteriorating body. The truth is, God gave me this body to take care of while I'm here on earth and I have not been a good steward of this body....not as good as I could be. It is never too late to start.
I have to remind myself all the time that it takes 4 weeks for you to notice changes in your body, 8 weeks for friends and family and 12 for the rest of the world to see it....so I have to give it 12 weeks before I can "quit". And even then, I know I won't want to. It takes 4 weeks to form a new habit and even longer to break one...so by the time I "can quit" if I don't see any changes in my body, I won't want to because it has become a good habit. :-) There are ways to work around the "easy way out", you just have to find what works for you....for me, it is just doing it and promising myself I will thank me for it later.
"The hardest lift to do is your butt of the couch"
"No matter how slow you go you are still lapping everyone on the couch"
Sometimes it is hard to admit that we are weak, but it is harder to admit that we are strong enough. But we ARE strong enough.
Sometimes it is even harder to admit that we are strong enough. It is easier to just say, "I can't" than it is to say, "I CAN". You CAN change what you don't like. You CAN be a more positive person. You CAN say no to a cookie....face it, that COOKIE has no power....you just have to practice some restraint and say no to yourself. You CAN say yes to 20 minutes of exercise, you just have to MAKE yourself do it sometimes. The truth is, until it becomes a habit it will be hard. It will be hard when you don't see results to keep going. THAT is where you have to tell yourself the honest truth...."I am strong enough to do this".
Thursday was day one of my new exercise routine...which as I said is a "four letter word" to me...and though I didn't want to some days, I have kept to my promise to myself to not take more than one day off in a week from doing it.....well so far anyway. :-) I took Sunday off. My treadmill decided not to work yesterday when my husband decided he wanted to try my workout too...which meant I couldn't do mine.....now the EASY thing would have been to just NOT work out, but I felt like I was cheating myself out of the body I DESERVE if I did that. So I got on the stationary bike instead.
The key, I have found, is to be consistent. I won't see success at ALL if I don't stick to it. What do I have to lose besides the weight? I will lose additional pain that comes from feeling like a failure. I will lose additional physical pain that the excess weight puts on my already broken and deteriorating body. The truth is, God gave me this body to take care of while I'm here on earth and I have not been a good steward of this body....not as good as I could be. It is never too late to start.
I have to remind myself all the time that it takes 4 weeks for you to notice changes in your body, 8 weeks for friends and family and 12 for the rest of the world to see it....so I have to give it 12 weeks before I can "quit". And even then, I know I won't want to. It takes 4 weeks to form a new habit and even longer to break one...so by the time I "can quit" if I don't see any changes in my body, I won't want to because it has become a good habit. :-) There are ways to work around the "easy way out", you just have to find what works for you....for me, it is just doing it and promising myself I will thank me for it later.
"The hardest lift to do is your butt of the couch"
"No matter how slow you go you are still lapping everyone on the couch"
Sometimes it is hard to admit that we are weak, but it is harder to admit that we are strong enough. But we ARE strong enough.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
The hardest lift of all is lifting your butt off the couch
Day one of my new workout routine.
Ok so let me preface this with "workouts" and me just don't get along. Oh I like being active, don't get me wrong, but the words "workout routine" and I just have NEVER been "besties"....EVER. I was always a very active kid and an even more active teenager. It wasn't until after I had kids that I found that the level of activity needed to chase after kids was not getting the job done. So like many of us do, I got fatter. I should have gone back to what I knew, to what I loved about the kinds of exercise I had done before...nothing really FELT like exercise and instead I was just having fun. But I can sit here and "should've, would've, could've" myself to death....and let's face it, we all have excuses and "reasons" some valid, some not, for not lifting our butts off the couch and MOVING out bodies.
Food has never really been a problem for me. I understand and recognize proper portions. I know balanced meals are better than not and HOW to make them...not just slop something on a plate and call it dinner. My mother has always been very health conscious and instilled in all of us kids what GOOD, WHOLESOME and NATURAL food is...what it looks like, what it tastes like and how to prepare it in interesting ways. She did it on a sometimes really tight budget too...and we ALWAYS had extra kids at our house...that woman still amazes me. My dad is a WONDERFUL cook as well, introduced me to exotic meats and seemingly strange ways of preparing it...even wild game. (My dad makes an amazing Alligator Chili BTW), my little brother is a most amazing and creative chef as well, with his degree in Culinary Arts and is always my go to guy for "what wine goes with my dinner" information. So I know how and what to do with food. The more colors on your plate the better.....your plate should be mostly veggies, then lean protein, then little carbohydrates.....yes I know all that...and to be honest MOST of the time that is how I eat. So FOOD isn't so much of a problem.
My issue has always been that I simply don't move enough for the food that I eat. My body requires fuel, but I usually am not burning all the fuel I am taking in. Or as has been the most recent issue, and the reason for my plateau in weight loss.....I am burning the FUEL but not the reserves! Just walking is not going to cut it any more. It just isn't. It is time to face that. I'm not going to get my sculpted body back just by cutting calories and making better choices on my food. Ok yes, cutting out fried foods and carb heavy meals will HELP me lose pounds on a scale....BUT 120 lbs of flabby thin self is not nearly as cute as 130 lbs of sculpted lean muscle self.....personally I would rather have the latter....the number on the scale just can't be that much of a focus in our lives that we value it over the actual SELF we see. Period.
So today, I made the attempt to make peace with my nemesis.....Workout Routine.....Oh how I despise thee....and I know the feeling is mutual. I can tell you hate me too by the week of dedication I show you and the non loss I see on the scale and no budge in the measurements....seriously....after a week I generally GAIN weight and my clothes feel tighter not looser! It is like I am wearing my skin a size too small after the first week or two. This is what I find most discouraging about "workout routines". You give 2 weeks......dedicate and stick to it for 2 weeks...and you seem to go backwards. That isn't seeing NO progress that is seeing BACKWARDS progress. It is usually at this point that I give up.....that is if I last that long. The other issue I have with these "routines" is that they are ROUTINES so I feel like I *have* to do them or I'm failing myself and everyone else. The truth is, my muscles hurt, my joints are screaming, by the end of the day (since I try to work out in the morning as much as possible...when I actually do it) I'm so stiff and sore that I can hardly breathe without pain....sleep?!? HA! But today, I decided to try again anyway.
I don't know what is going to make it different this time. I would like to think that I'm just that much more focused and determined..but I don't know if that is really it. I would like to say that I have really high hopes for the progress I'm going to see in the next 2 weeks....but I don't. Maybe that is sad but I don't. I'm not looking at it and thinking "ok so I'm going to lose 2 pounds each week"....nope...I'm not looking at it and saying "ok I'm going to go down another pant size in 2 weeks"...nope. It doesn't mean I'm not wishing that I would have that kind of success, I'm just not holding out hope for that because I know how this always works with me. I stick to it for a week or two and I give up because I'm not seeing results. THIS time, I'm just trying to STICK TO IT. If all I gain is that my endurance is up from what it was when I started then so be it. If all that happens is I am buffer underneath my protective layer of fat, then so be it. The important thing is that today, I laced up my running shoes and I LIFTED MY BUTT OFF THAT COUCH. I then got on my treadmill.....
AND I RAN.
That is right folks, I RAN. I have never in my life ran on a treadmill. Not even at a size 2 did I EVER run on a treadmill. I'm always afraid I'm going to put my eye out. (ha ha my busty gals will understand that one) I always figure skated, swam, danced or tumbled (gymnastics) for exercise..running was not really required. So, I found a 2 week running plan for the treadmill online (Pinterest.....LOVE IT) and I had to modify it a bit for myself but I did it. I did running intervals on my treadmill for the first time in my life. 20 minutes of that done, I moved on to a super basic "Arm workout for beginners" which I again modified but it was to do the bicep curls WITH weights instead of without....and then some of my crunches I normally do. I decided to skip the squats and lunges this week to let my body adjust to the extra workouts. :-)
So here I sit. SORE. Yet I feel pretty accomplished. I did something I have never done, and I'm going to get up tomorrow and I'm going to do it again. Today just brought me one day closer to the body I not only WANT, but to the body I DESERVE.
"No matter how slow you go, you're still lapping everyone on the couch"~ ?
"The hardest lift of all is lifting your butt off the couch" ~ ?
"What you give is all you deserve to get" ~ Me
Ok so let me preface this with "workouts" and me just don't get along. Oh I like being active, don't get me wrong, but the words "workout routine" and I just have NEVER been "besties"....EVER. I was always a very active kid and an even more active teenager. It wasn't until after I had kids that I found that the level of activity needed to chase after kids was not getting the job done. So like many of us do, I got fatter. I should have gone back to what I knew, to what I loved about the kinds of exercise I had done before...nothing really FELT like exercise and instead I was just having fun. But I can sit here and "should've, would've, could've" myself to death....and let's face it, we all have excuses and "reasons" some valid, some not, for not lifting our butts off the couch and MOVING out bodies.
Food has never really been a problem for me. I understand and recognize proper portions. I know balanced meals are better than not and HOW to make them...not just slop something on a plate and call it dinner. My mother has always been very health conscious and instilled in all of us kids what GOOD, WHOLESOME and NATURAL food is...what it looks like, what it tastes like and how to prepare it in interesting ways. She did it on a sometimes really tight budget too...and we ALWAYS had extra kids at our house...that woman still amazes me. My dad is a WONDERFUL cook as well, introduced me to exotic meats and seemingly strange ways of preparing it...even wild game. (My dad makes an amazing Alligator Chili BTW), my little brother is a most amazing and creative chef as well, with his degree in Culinary Arts and is always my go to guy for "what wine goes with my dinner" information. So I know how and what to do with food. The more colors on your plate the better.....your plate should be mostly veggies, then lean protein, then little carbohydrates.....yes I know all that...and to be honest MOST of the time that is how I eat. So FOOD isn't so much of a problem.
My issue has always been that I simply don't move enough for the food that I eat. My body requires fuel, but I usually am not burning all the fuel I am taking in. Or as has been the most recent issue, and the reason for my plateau in weight loss.....I am burning the FUEL but not the reserves! Just walking is not going to cut it any more. It just isn't. It is time to face that. I'm not going to get my sculpted body back just by cutting calories and making better choices on my food. Ok yes, cutting out fried foods and carb heavy meals will HELP me lose pounds on a scale....BUT 120 lbs of flabby thin self is not nearly as cute as 130 lbs of sculpted lean muscle self.....personally I would rather have the latter....the number on the scale just can't be that much of a focus in our lives that we value it over the actual SELF we see. Period.
So today, I made the attempt to make peace with my nemesis.....Workout Routine.....Oh how I despise thee....and I know the feeling is mutual. I can tell you hate me too by the week of dedication I show you and the non loss I see on the scale and no budge in the measurements....seriously....after a week I generally GAIN weight and my clothes feel tighter not looser! It is like I am wearing my skin a size too small after the first week or two. This is what I find most discouraging about "workout routines". You give 2 weeks......dedicate and stick to it for 2 weeks...and you seem to go backwards. That isn't seeing NO progress that is seeing BACKWARDS progress. It is usually at this point that I give up.....that is if I last that long. The other issue I have with these "routines" is that they are ROUTINES so I feel like I *have* to do them or I'm failing myself and everyone else. The truth is, my muscles hurt, my joints are screaming, by the end of the day (since I try to work out in the morning as much as possible...when I actually do it) I'm so stiff and sore that I can hardly breathe without pain....sleep?!? HA! But today, I decided to try again anyway.
I don't know what is going to make it different this time. I would like to think that I'm just that much more focused and determined..but I don't know if that is really it. I would like to say that I have really high hopes for the progress I'm going to see in the next 2 weeks....but I don't. Maybe that is sad but I don't. I'm not looking at it and thinking "ok so I'm going to lose 2 pounds each week"....nope...I'm not looking at it and saying "ok I'm going to go down another pant size in 2 weeks"...nope. It doesn't mean I'm not wishing that I would have that kind of success, I'm just not holding out hope for that because I know how this always works with me. I stick to it for a week or two and I give up because I'm not seeing results. THIS time, I'm just trying to STICK TO IT. If all I gain is that my endurance is up from what it was when I started then so be it. If all that happens is I am buffer underneath my protective layer of fat, then so be it. The important thing is that today, I laced up my running shoes and I LIFTED MY BUTT OFF THAT COUCH. I then got on my treadmill.....
AND I RAN.
That is right folks, I RAN. I have never in my life ran on a treadmill. Not even at a size 2 did I EVER run on a treadmill. I'm always afraid I'm going to put my eye out. (ha ha my busty gals will understand that one) I always figure skated, swam, danced or tumbled (gymnastics) for exercise..running was not really required. So, I found a 2 week running plan for the treadmill online (Pinterest.....LOVE IT) and I had to modify it a bit for myself but I did it. I did running intervals on my treadmill for the first time in my life. 20 minutes of that done, I moved on to a super basic "Arm workout for beginners" which I again modified but it was to do the bicep curls WITH weights instead of without....and then some of my crunches I normally do. I decided to skip the squats and lunges this week to let my body adjust to the extra workouts. :-)
So here I sit. SORE. Yet I feel pretty accomplished. I did something I have never done, and I'm going to get up tomorrow and I'm going to do it again. Today just brought me one day closer to the body I not only WANT, but to the body I DESERVE.
"No matter how slow you go, you're still lapping everyone on the couch"~ ?
"The hardest lift of all is lifting your butt off the couch" ~ ?
"What you give is all you deserve to get" ~ Me
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