I was one of three people at the gym this morning, not counting the nice lady who let us all in. Of course, this made me feel smug, but that doesn’t last past my first exercise, which is a clock-in with pushups. I banged out all 25 with the same power I threw at last week’s 20. Next week, we’ll see if I can keep it going. In fact, I made strength gains in all my measured areas.
The scale this morning was a relief. I stayed dead even from last week (from the last several months). But that’s nice, because given all I’d been eating lately, I was sure I’d post something up. And the other really good plus to this is that I’m definitely putting on more muscle, so staying the same means that I’m chopping fat and replacing it with the good stuff. Yessuh.
Folks keep commenting on how discplined I am, per my journal entries. While it’s true that my physical fitness efforts are well disciplined, I’m failing myself in the areas of eating appropriately. Though there aren’t several major failures, it’s just this steady trickle of taking in calories that I don’t need. Were I to marshall my abilities around what goes into my mouth, I’d feel that I was the most disciplined guy around. However, with that one area still lacking any major progress, I’m convinced that I’m not 100%, or even 90%. As one of my main goals of the first few months of 2005 is to drop down to 210 lbs. from 240, I see every time I slip up and eat something off plan as a failure.
I was trying out the bike at the gym as a means of calorie burning (I liked it, but must’ve not adjusted it well, because my knees hurt like hell after only 5.5 miles). To shake that off, I ran two miles on the hamster, but right at the beginning of this, MTV “Made” came on. Have you seen this show? It’s about people wanting to do X, and then MTV provides special coaches, and it’s usually about overcoming a struggle internal to their self image.
This one was about a high school sophmore girl wanting to join the boy’s football team. It was excellent to watch while running, because I was able to praise my levels of commitment. Even though I slam myself for my nutrition issues, I’m doing much better than I give credit for. While watching this girl destroy her diet at the beginning of the episode, I was thankful that I’ve come as far as I have. Even during the holidays, while eating anything interesting I encountered, I was definitely much better than I’d been in the past.
I’m positive about 2005. I know this will be a year full of great strides and great successes. It will be a year for trying new things, for reaching new achievments in my efforts. I will run many more races, and I will run longer distances in my races than before. I will be capable of much more than I’ve ever managed in the past. And this comes from all the hard work that comes out of me, daily. And from the support of my wife, my online friends, and the occasional person in real life who inspires me. This will be my year.
And then, 2006 will just shred everything I did over 2005.
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