I AM sorry for the much delayed post about the start of the body challenge at the gym (aka the biggest loser). It's been a crazy few days since then -- more on this in a moment...
The kick-off for the challenge was on Saturday at 9 a.m. There was no work-out this time, it was informational only. The owner of our gym owns 3 gyms in the area, so the three teams are each of the gyms. It's a 12 week challenge. The first Saturday of each month we meet up for a "club challenge" where all three teams compete against each other in a work out at Mt. Trashmore. (Just in case some non-local wandered on here, Mt. Trashmore is a local recreation place that was indeed made out of trash.) The other Saturdays we have an hour long meeting at the gym which includes a "fun" work-out and an informational topic.
At the kick-off, they gave us the food plan and the exercise goals. I won't get too mired in the exercise goals -- lots of cardio and strength training. It's not rocket surgery, after all. They strongly suggest doing cardio in the morning. Yesterday, I did get up at 6:30 am and did 30 minutes of cardio before I had to go to a doctor's appointment at 8:30. Today, I was not as good but it was because I had to leave so early to take my mom to an outpatient surgery and I'm just not ready to get up at 5:00 am for anyone. Yet. When I am back at work next week (I'm on staycation this week), I may have to get up a bit before 6:00 in order to get to the gym and back and showered, etc in the right amount of time. I'm working on it.
I've NEVER been an early riser or someone who thrives on being up in the morning. Many years ago I had a 6am shift at my job (can you imagine?), but I still wasn't ever raring to go. BUT, part of the diet challenge is that they want us to try not to drink coffee. SO, getting up and going to the gym totally eliminates the need for coffee. I mean, I'm saying this after one day, but trust me -- I didn't miss it at all yesterday. Not that I'm a caffeine-a-holic, I usually have one travel mug a day. But, it's just the idea of it.
ESPECIALLY with all of the dietary restrictions on the new diet... It's definitely challenging. SO challenging that Scott and I spent like 3 hours on Sunday trying to figure out what we were going to eat. I'm afraid I'm still not 100% on target, but I'm working on it. It's a focus on a specific caloric, protein, carb and fat goals. It's targeted eating based on a weight where I have less fat or something. It's not the end target weight -- the weight the calculations are based on is 210. I think the targets get lower as the weeks go on. I'm supposed to eat about 1833 calories a day and there are other targets for fat, protein and carbohydrates. I'm not doing so hot on the protein so far. The protein goal is like 229 or something. It is very hard to eat that much protein in a day, we're finding. Especially while trying to keep fat and carbs down to a minimum. Very challenging! But one of the keys things with the diet plan is that they never want you to feel hungry so they want you to eat something every 2-3 hours. I'm also failing at that. In part because I had a 4 hour trip to the MRI yesterday which of course put me way off track.
The crazy days in general have been wreaking havoc. I didn't workout Friday through Sunday, and there was a lot of bad eating behavior on Saturday when we were confronted with the challenges of the weeks to come.
And here's where the title comes in. The slippery slope. When I don't do everything 100% correct -- which how often is that really going to happen? -- I start to beat myself up a little. And that leads to a lot. I don't want to beat myself up. That's the point of why I started doing this in the first place. Started changing my life.
And that's the thing. I'm changing my life. A life that's been going in the wrong direction for a while healthwise and it's not going to change in a few weeks. It's going to take time. BUT. Where is the line between allowing myself some room for mistakes and sliding down the slope into all of my bad old habits again? I don't want to forgive myself but so much, you know? If I skip a day of cardio because my mom had surgery, is that forgivable? What if it's just because I don't wanna?
And don't get me started on the self-abuse for not starting strength training yet. Sigh. It's a slippery slope, and I definitely need some traction.
hugs,
Heather
No comments:
Post a Comment