Through being swamped the last several weeks in a row, I’ve learned the effects of stress and excessive workload on one’s fitness and nutrition efforts. Namely, it can wreck your efforts and your motivation entirely. And then I learned this addendum: “if you let it.”
Gandhi said something that sticks with me all the time. He said that everyone has the same amount of hours in their day, and yet some complain that there wasn’t enough time, while others achieve greatness. When I remember this, it reminds me that I control how I spend my time, regardless of the apparent urgency of the things going on around me.
I had to give myself the old “dig in and push” pep talk, too. It started when I noticed the scale creeping back up despite my incessant trips to the gym and my grueling workouts. It’s the same old story at the bottom: calories in versus calories out. But when one gets discouraged, it’s really easy to throw in the towel. That wouldn’t really be helpful to me. And so, I reminded myself I must dig in and push if I’m to keep the ground I’ve fought so hard to conquer.
With summer right on my doorstep, I’m not exceedingly worried. We’re all more active when things get nicer out. Just the same, I’d like to recover my five or so pounds of creep BEFORE it’s more commonplace to wear less clothing in the day to day, especially since weight gained after a lot of hard work seems to just plop itself directly into the jiggliest spots of one’s belly.
Reading your blogs helps me. Reminding myself of how I got here helps me. Not making excuses helps me a great deal.
Dig in and push.
**EDIT: I went to the gym at 5AM and did some new workout stuff I dug out of this recent month’s Men’s Health. It was mostly along the lines of push-pull muscle work. I did chinups followed by shoulder press in a quick circuit of many short sets. I then did some triceps and biceps work to top it off. Thereafter, I went upstairs to the cardio gear and burned 500 calories off, just to start the day off right.
Everything is a choice. You can start the moment after you stopped. You can succeed directly after you fail. Your call.
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