Saturday, June 20, 2009off-162.5#
That 162.5 up there is a very frustrating number for me. It is what it is. It is the culmination of poor decisions made. It is too many dinners including bread. It's too many treats and too many meals eaten out. It is keeping my nutrition just enough in check that it doesn't go up any further but failing to dial it in with the type of precision necessary to ratchet it down further. And I've been thinking quite a lot about that failure, what motivates it, and what hinders me from getting past it. As with everything, I know there are multiple factors there. One of the biggest is laziness--pure and simple. It is easier, by far, not to worry about getting groceries in preparation to cook meals before I go to work which then requires the washing of dishes. It is easier to go out and let someone else do all the work. Even if I do make the most sane decisions possible when I eat out, the ingredients are suboptimal at best.
As I thought about my laziness, though, accepting it as the major reason for my failure just wasn't feeling right. I can overcome laziness--all I have to do is see light at the end of a tunnel. It can be a
REALLY long tunnel; there just has to be light at the end of it.
And therein lies the key. It occurred to me the other night that I do not see light. Somehow I just don't believe that I can get there. (There being 140#.) The tunnel is nothing but dark. In the times when I have completely hunkered down and weighed every last ounce of food that I've eaten, planned every move, followed the sage advice of those wiser than I (despite what they believed), the effort made little to no difference. Why would this time, should I finally crank it all down, be any different? If I don't truly try, I can't truly be disappointed.
And that realization brings to light what I believe is one of the other issues...complacency. Though I am not purely pleased with where I am, I am not as ashamed of it as I was two years ago in June, and I believe that hinders me in that it makes things harder. My diet was easier to make effective adjustments to, and my body was slightly more responsive. And it seems to make me less motivated for somewhat apparent reasons. A more positive influence on this complacency is my strength gains which have been consistent enough to keep me from feeling like a total failure in this endeavor and without which I'm sure I'd have pulled out my hair by now.
Now the key is going to be going from this stage of uber-analysis to one of action, and
consistent action. One thought has been that since I'm finding it difficult to believe in my power to reach 140 (or thereabouts), I could find another thing to motivate me to stay on task for a prescribed amount of time, a "prize" maybe. My last couple of workouts have been spent trying to come up with something to do just that. Maybe I'm over-blessed. I'm having trouble thinking of a prize. :)
On different note, here are some pics from home...
Anneliese was absorbed with making her Uncle a pic for me to bring back to him. She was unbelievably precise in what she wanted to accomplish.
My new nephew, the Duke. I call him that because his parents decided to bestow upon him the middle name of Marion.
You'd be surprised how frequently I inspire this response in people.
This was the most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen. I wish I'd had a 10mm or 17mm lens to get both ends of it. It was pure neon from end-to-end, both of which we could see. It also had like 6 or 7 plainly visible colors.
Again, a totally impromptu shot. I was holding the Duke when his big brother decided to climb up there at which point both big sisters had to join the pile. My big brother then grabbed my camera to catch it. Aren't they beautiful?!
TODAY'S WORKOUT:
Black and purple band Assisted pullups/elevated pushups
4, 4-rung ladders. (The 1rep rung, I did with just the purple band, and this was the first time I was able to do all the pushups elevated instead of having to drop to the knees.)
Assisted pistols: 3, 3-rung ladders interspersed between the rungs of pullups and pushups.
I actually ended up adding in 4 sets of 1/1 12kg counterbalanced attempts at pistols. I was feeling as if the assisted pistols weren't going much of anywhere,so I decided to try doing a pistol just with counterbalance. I can only get about a third of the way down, but I'm going to run with this instead of persisting with the assisted ones, and see how I progress from here.
4 30sec rounds of planks with 50 sec of rest b/w.
30 challenge burpees in 3'43"
20kg Tabata swings.
YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT: 80 Rounds of VO2 Max with the 12kg. The first 1/4 I hit 8 reps per round. The next 1/2 I hit 7 reps per round. Then much of the last 1/4th I only hit 6. Brutal.
Rest 5 min.
30 Challenge burpees in 9'40". YES THAT IS NINE MINUTES PLUS.
I actually didn't think I was going to get a workout in yesterday. I felt like doody for most of the day, but that passed about 1 am and I got outside and got busy. BTW, it's still really frikkin' hot at 1am. The air is rediculously still which is just WRONG when it's this hot.
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