Fitness and Food...Mashed





Monday, December 16, 2013

Tapering, Good for the Soul

This is the post of what happens when your quest to awesomeness turns out to be not-so-awesome.

I’m frustrated (To put it ever so mildly and in as few words as possible)! My journey towards epic changes in my health and body have not been going so well! I started out so well and lost an inch almost everywhere after two weeks! But that was back in October. It’s now December and my December 25 goal is quickly approaching. And, yet, I am still far from goals and my body has not much changed since October. Granted, it hasn’t gotten any worse either but it’s still super frustrating to devote time and money to something and have it yield zero results!

After I got done being overly pissed about the situation, I tried to analyze what happened over the course of November and the first two weeks of December. What was I doing? What was I lacking? What life events were going on?
Just to name a few – thanksgiving feasts, my motivation temporarily being knocked unconscious (that required some real intense resuscitating!), sitting a TON at work. Gordon even thought that it might be an exercise plateau (and I don’t disagree with him on that!)
All these things have led me down the path to failure towards my goal! But, When you steer off course, you don’t continue to head down that path, you adjust.

Taking my own advice, with my deadline less than ten days away, I need to put a new game plan into action. I plan to switch up my workout plan this week – a wake-up call in  a sense! I am going to attempt this week to do Jillian Michaels 30-day shred (this workout video has many great reviews for people of all ages and sizes) and perhaps throw in a random rest day that I’m not used to. I also want to start using my fitbit activity tracker that tracks my daily steps in an attempt to get my amount of sitting at work under control. (if you don’t know what the fitbit is, it’s this awesome little gadget that can track your steps, sleep, and activity level)
This will be a welcome change to slow in pace for me this week. It seems bizarre to me to stop working so hard so close to my goal date but changing your body and health for the better is not a sprint, it’s a marathon, and most endurance athletes-like the marathon runner- taper before their big competition! As far as diet goes, Gordon and I are trying to stick as close to clean eating as possible. With it being the holiday’s, however, we realize that some diet forgiveness will be in order (holiday party, birthday, Christmas cookies – tis life to enjoy the small happiness of the holiday.)


I also realize that now my goals that I set back in October might be too lofty to achieve in ten days. I could change them, but I won’t. Sometimes failure to reach our goals can teach us more about who we are and about how our bodies react more than success. 

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