So I found myself this week having many moments of making excuses.
There was a moment when it was 8pm and I was doing the dishes left over from dinner and making my lunch for the next day when my lovely wife asked if I was "Still going to go for a walk?" and I started to make excuses, it was getting late and was thinking of skipping it and get my stuff ready for the next day and then get ready for bed; I get up at 5 am so I usually try to go to bed around 9 pm.
So while i finished up what I was doing I thought to myself "Damn it Scott, no excuses!" so when I was done I got changed and did my apartment walking. almost 4000 steps later and 9 flights of stairs all in 20 mins and I was done.
20 minutes that was it! Why was I making excuses for 20 mins of exercise? 20 minutes to work at making my own health better, why did I think I am not worth 20 mins? I was very happy I did it and my wife was proud of my dedication to it; however this is the battle I face.
This is the same battle many of us face on a daily occurrence. Much like my blog from before about the voices in my head it is an ongoing battle of excuses versus will, and a lot of the times I am willing to bet that we don't even realize the bartering and pleading and excuses we make in our head sub-consciously. We tell our selves that we will do it tomorrow or twice as long next time or that it is okay i will just have a little bite of_____ or I ate healthy earlier so its ok if i have ____. We reason and make deals with in our self. It is only natural to do but I can not stress enough the need to hear the reasoning and dealing and scheming of your inner sabotageur trying to reek havoc on you. When you recognize this you need to fight against it, you need to stand firm and stay diligent in your goals.
And when you do come through your fight against yourself and win, CELEBRATE it! You survived the fight, you came through unscathed and healthier for it; why not be proud of that accomplishment?
Its the small victories that will carry us forward. The saying goes that the best way to predict the future is to review the past; so with that said what better past to create than that of smart healthy choices and perseverance of obstacles that were preventing you from succeeding. You are now creating an immediate history of winning and accomplishment. these small victories will grow and grow and soon it will be easy to look back and see where you were to where you now are.
All I am asking for from you and myself is 3 weeks, 21 days straight of good choices and consistently fighting for your own health and life. Obviously going balls to the wall all at once is overwhelming and you will set yourself up for failure, what I am asking of myself and of all of you is 21 days straight of choosing better and making the same smart choices everyday plus one new one to add to your other smart choice.
Example: (examples only.. you choose what you want to do but choose wisely!)
Day 1: No pizza for dinner
Day 2: No pizza for dinner and 20 mins of walking for your health
Day 3: No pizza for dinner, 20 mins of walking for health and record my meals on MyFitnessPal
Day 4: No Pizza, 20 min walk, record meals, drink 4 litres of water a day
Day 5.......
You get the idea of what I am saying, everyday just make a small choice to improve your status. If you can do this for 21 days straight with NO skipped days I guarantee you will be so happy with your progress that you will not want to stop. If you skip a day you must start over again, sorry but you need to have the 21 days continuous success to create a habit and that is our goal here. I want myself and you to create habits of success so that when you look back at your last 3 weeks you feel accomplished, you see that you are truly able to commit and do the work needed and you can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I want you to wake up from your life and become a participant.
After that 3 weeks if you want a rest day have one, but I guarantee you will feel guilty that your not getting your steps in, and that is okay, you DO need rest days but in the beginning you have to set yourself up for success.
So many times I would start off with 2, 3 or even 5 days straight of getting my steps or burn in, then that dreaded rest day would come and guess what... i would be on rest day for next 4 months (or longer). This is why it is so important to go 21 days without that rest, go 21 days with small goals and build upon them. It takes 21 days to form a habit and that is what we need to do to get healthy. Create a habit of putting our life first, create a habit of making smart decisions about our health, create a habit of success, so that when we see our accomplishments there is nothing but victories. Each small victory has now after 21 days become one huge victory because you made smart decisions for 21 days straight!
I am approaching my 21 days of smart choices and I am starting to see where I was and where I am and while it is overwhelming to look and see how far I have yet to go in terms of my weight loss; it is great to see that my food intake choices have created great results. FYI: the only thing I wish I started earlier in this 21 days of smart choices is to start my 20 mins of excercise on day 2 (I think I started on or around day 12). I instead had decided to just get more steps in than I was already getting and that was not specific enough, if I was to re-word it I would say get more steps in while at my day job by going for a walk through fabrication shop every hour. Now I have post its all over my desk as reminders to do things such as walk or drink water while I am at work and i have this blog and my Vlog to remind me and keep track of what I am doing and where I am headed, it is great to have a reference point to refer to.
This is where I want to tell you about lesson 2. You need to log your information.
Log your meals. Log your 21 day steps. Log your activity (or get a fitness tracker of some sort like FitBit or BodyBug or whatever you want as they will log it for you). Log what it is that your internal monologue says (and prove it wrong!). Log your goals. Log what you will do/ how you celebrate each big accomplishment (first 10 pounds, 25lbs, 50 etc - and make it reasonable and non food related). When you log all of these things you hold yourself accountable to your work and success. You can face the reality of your struggles and challenge them head on. you can bare witness to your own change from spectator to participant. Most importantly it will help you see the victories of where you were and where you are going and help you understand yourself more along the way.
I have a cork board in my bead room on my side of the bed on it is a list of goals and rewards with room for the date achieved. i see this every morning when I get up and every night when I go to bed and I think of how close I am to the next goal. I am excited once I start crossing off items from this list. As i have a long way to go as I want to lose over 55% of my body mass I have some big rewards the closer I get to my final goal. For example, I have a dream cruise on the list, a new suit, once I reach toward the end of my goals, however I also have new work out shoes, new headphones, new work out clothes, gym membership etc for my start out goals as I begin this journey. They start off as goals to help and encourage me as I begin my journey and end off when I have lost over 200 pounds they become more of a celebration of my revealing of the hard work I have done. The dream vacation is for the end as I will feel finally comfortable go go to a sunny destination and take off my shirt when I go to the pool or beach.
Your home work this week is to to start logging, and once you have started and are on you journey, write down your goals.
This is going to be the most exciting journey of your life as I know it will be for mine. Every step leads to another and in the end it all leads to our journey of finding us. In your journey what is your end goal reward?
I will try to start regular posts Mondays (weigh in days) and Fridays (random thoughts)
Please like and share if you found my blog helpful because if it helped/inspired you then maybe it will inspire others too!
Don't for get to check out my Vlog too!
SW 447
LW 438
TW 438
Loss 0
LTD 9
Not the result I wanted but its ok.. every week is a new challenge. I will overcome this!
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