Nobody's Perfect

Least of all me. I nearly gave up today.

I nearly threw the towel in, admitted defeat, sat on the sofa and stuffed my face. To be honest I've been wanting to do it all week. The dreaded nursery germs have struck again, most of my family are ill. Apart from my son who seems to magically pass these germs to us whilst avoiding them himself.

I've been feeling it on and off since about last Friday when I started with an upset tummy - don't panic, I'm not going to go into details!! That has been on and off since then and a couple of days ago I started feeling like I had a cold coming on as well. On top of this I'm going through a stressful patch at work and in the past that would be guaranteed to send me scrambling through the cupboards for comfort food.

Up to today I'd managed to keep going, some days channelling my stress into my exercise. But as I said to my husband last night, because my hearts not really been in it, I didn't feel like I'd had a good week diet-wise. I was adding more stress to myself worrying about getting on the scales on Monday and not having lost anything because I didn't feel like I'd been good this week. If I look at this objectively, I've stuck to my calorie allowance and my exercise plan so I haven't wandered off track. Also, I've started running and as I'm not doing this for as long as my zumba, I'm not burning as many calories. This should change as I get more into it but it may well mean I don't lose as much this week. So over all, no reason to panic.

Part of me had been thinking I shouldn't share this on my blog as people might think I'm a failure. I've only been dieting successfully for a couple of months and now I'm blogging about it like I know it all! But I have never professed to be an expert. And aren't sharing the bad times as important as the good? After all, everyone has them. If I hadn't had them before I'd have never put this weight on in the first place!

 

Don't let them beat you.

As I was saying, I nearly gave up today. I just couldn't face exercise waking up feeling full of a cold and with a dodgy tummy. It made me feel so down and depressed. I was telling myself I was never going to reach my goal weight feeling like this, what was the point in it all? 

My son went down for nap and my first instinct was to join him. Instead I went downstairs and watched some TV. All the time I was telling myself while he was asleep I should get up and do my exercise (Thursday is currently Zumba day). Once the endophines kicked in I would feel better, I halfheartedly told myself.

I got up and started the Wii game, got everything ready and felt like crying - I didn't want to do this. I'll just do a short session this time, I said. I can get through that. Then I remembered that the running might not be burning as much calories so to make up for it I should do a longer Zumba session to give myself a better chance. I wavered, hovering between short session and long session. I bit the bullet and went for the long session. I hadn't done Zumba since Saturday because of the running and doing some Yoga, and even then I'd only done a short session, so I went for a familiar set of routines to make it a bit easier on myself.

As it got going, at first I felt so uncoordinated, like I'd never done Zumba before. But before I knew it, I was on the third routine and I had only just started breaking a sweat. Hold on a minute! Normally I felt it a lot sooner than this. The more I did, the more I noticed how my fitness had improved. I was able to push myself a lot harder than before. Once the endophines kicked in I actually did enjoy myself and very soon I had finished.

I did feel better as I had told myself but didn't believe. If I hadn't done it, I wouldn't have noticed the improvement I'd made. I also feel a massive sense of achievement for taking on my demons and winning.

Overall, I'm still not feeling as focused as previous weeks, but I'm proud to say I didn't give up. I wanted to share this as I know everyone has times when they've had enough, when they think that all the bad habits they had in the past will make them feel better. They won't, I can tell you from experience. I know if I had just sat on the sofa and stuffed my face I would feel incredibly depressed now and be kicking myself for undoing my good work.

So, for anyone out there also feeling like they can't do this any more, please don't give up. Keep your goal in mind and I promise you, if you stick at it you will get there. The demons nipping at your heels should only make you run for that goal even harder! Don't let them win, you're stronger than you think.