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Friday, April 24, 2015

Letting go of perfection

I can kind of be an all or nothing kind of girl when it comes to my eating and workouts.  

If I overindulge one day, I tend to give up on tracking and eating right until the next new week begins.

If I choose to sleep in one day instead of hitting the gym, I will make the same choice for the rest of the week.

This is a terrible approach to reaching my goals.  I know that intuitively, but for some reason, I haven't fixed it yet.  

I mean, one of the reasons I went back to Weight Watchers is because I could have one bad day and still stay on track for the week.

And I know how much I love my morning workouts and getting them done for the day, so even if I do sleep in once, I don't need to keep doing it.

i guess what I need to do is let go of this idea that I'm going to be perfect.  Because I'm not going to be.  There are going to be evenings out with friends when I can't resist ordering dessert.  That doesn't mean I have to eat poorly for three to five more days.  And there are going to be occasional mornings when another hour of sleep sounds better than a workout, but they don't have to derail me for the whole week.

That's easier said than accepted though.

Maybe I need a new quote to go up on my workout motivation board that will help me get over this and keep moving even after a setback.

Any suggestions?

 +++++

Last week's workouts
Friday: Off
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off
Monday: 3 miles on the treadmill
Tuesday: 2 miles on the treadmill
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Off

This week didn't go as planned.  I think my busy schedule has been catching up with me, making it harder to get up in the mornings. And I had full intentions of a workout Thursday evening but then I got called in to work, so that didn't happen. But at least I got some workouts in.  Next week will be better.


4 comments:

  1. Letting go of perfection is a difficult concept to grasp. But you've hit the nail on the head - just because we screw up one day {or I think it might be more appropriately called "taking a break"} doesn't mean we've screwed everything up. All about perspective and I love yours!

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  2. I tend to do the same thing. One thing I'm trying to teach myself is that there is no such thing as "bad days" when it comes to eating habits. There are bad habits, but not bad days. So if I have a day where I indulge more than usual, I just try to remember it's one day. That continuing to do so is perpetuating a habit that I'm trying to change.

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  3. You are definitely not alone. I do the same thing, especially with my workouts. I still haven't found a way to convince myself that even if I'm 10 minutes "later" than I planned to go running, going for a short run is better than scrapping it all together. But I'm learning to not look at things (workouts) as a whole meaning I don't look at training weeks. I look at each day as it's one unit and what I did yesterday, doesn't effect what I have planned for today. So if I miss a workout and the next day was a "scheduled" rest day, I keep it a rest day. Thus far it's been a pretty good strategy and has me less stressed out about my getting in all my workouts than normal.

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  4. You're allowed to take time off. Try to take days off in between work-out days. i.e. day off, day on, day off, day on. Then you get a break every second day. It's great.
    Or you can tie it into other things. For example, when I was going to the gym religiously, I wouldn't wash my hair until I got it sweaty. It doesn't work for everyone but it worked for me :) It pushed me to go every second day, regardless.

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