Weight Loss

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You are not going to be perfect in your journey to weight loss and fitness. I did some stupid things this week. I was gone for a week as I traveled to Oklahoma City, OK for business. I started off good. I went to the grocery store and purchases yogurt, oatmeal, bananas, etc for snacks and breakfast. How do you recover when you’ve had a bad day, or week?

Tuesday I thought I would go all “Biggest Loser” on myself and exercise the entire night. I started by dealing my self 20 fitdeck cards. Unfortunately this ended up working my entire body. I also decided to use the “intermediate” recommendations. I wanted to use this week from home to exercise as much as humanly possible. Well I got through about 10 of my cards, my legs were burning, and if I got another card that wanted me to do some form of a push up, I was going to puke. I hate to quit, but I had to admit I was pushing myself too hard. I went downstairs and did some walked on the treadmill for the entire 2 hours the biggest loser was on (sprinting during commercials). I burned a ton of calories and felt good about myself. Previously I had gone to an outback steakhouse, skipped the bread, asked for “chicken on the Barbie” (minus the seasonings), and went to bed.

Wednesday I woke up too sore to move. My legs were shot. My butt was shot (as these are your biggest muscles, you want them to work). When I got back to the hotel, I got on the treadmill, but pretty much had to “mail in” my workouts for the rest of the week. I knew I was in trouble as the bodybugg I am testing out kept showing me barely having a calorie deficit.

I also was in a different time zone, and to make it short. My body never adjusted, and I kept waking up an hour early ever day.

When I finally got home and got to get on the scale, I had gained some weight. Was I bummed? Absolutely. I had wanted to come back at least a pound if not two down. Instead of giving up, and being discouraged I looked at what I could learn. Here is what it boils down to:

1. Slow and steady wins the race. While its great that I wanted to exercise forever, in reality your body is not ready to do this. You have to work up to different levels. In the same way that I take the stairs in buildings, I need to do this with exercise. Jumping from one level to another will only push you too hard, and leave you more than “just a little sore” it will leave you so you can’t exercise without pain.

2. Sleep is important. If my body was getting up earlier naturally I should’ve gone to bed earlier (instead of watching movies, etc).

3. While I took some steps to eat healthy, I could’ve gone to the Internet and found out exactly what I was putting into my body (and maybe found better choices). I also should’ve asked the cook not to cook my veggies in butter.

Recovery is the Key

Instead of wanting to quit (as I prepare to lose weight I have already lost once before), I got with my wife and we scheduled out exercise time for the week. I am “getting back on the horse” that had me losing weight. I have learned some things to try in the vent I find myself in the position again.

Find something Positive

While I couldn’t exercise (as my legs were in massive pain), I knew I would have to control my appetite. So while I could focus on the negative of gaining weight this week, I did learn how to identify the way my body acts.

One night I had finished reading “finally thin” by Kim Bensen. I had mailed in my workout on the treadmill, and I thought about eating some more cereal, fruit etc that was in my hotel. I took inventory and noticed a couple of things:

1. As I flipped through channel after channel on the television, I thought about eating. Then I thought. I am not hungry (I wasn’t). I was bored. I started editing my podcast on my laptop.

2. When I tried to contact my wife (and got her voicemail) I thought I wanted to eat. I wasn’t hungry. I was lonely. I called my brother instead.

So while the trip did not go as planned (except for the business part) I was able to find some things to be positive about, and learn from the things I did wrong so I can avoid doing them in the future.

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