The ups and downs of creating a lifestyle change

I mentioned last week that goals are really important to me. I have weight-loss and fitness goals, long term, short term and goals in the middle. They keep me motivated and I get to reward myself with each small achievement. Yesterday I met one of my weight-loss goals and I was so proud of myself (especially because the last couple of weeks have included quite a few birthdays and Halloween). I couldn’t stop smiling for 20 minutes after I weighed in! But one thing I’ve learned throughout this journey is that I can’t just focus on the numbers on the scale. Anyone who has tried to lose weight before knows that it can be really frustrating – sometimes the scale goes up even though you’ve stayed on plan all week, sometimes you plateau and sometimes even though you’ve cheated your weight goes down! I’ve learned you need to celebrate other milestones, not just weight loss. One such milestone was that last week I wore skinny jeans for the first time ever! And I felt good! I never thought I would say that!

My next re-test at TMR is coming up in a couple of weeks. My last couple re-tests were pretty disappointing. I hadn’t been following my eating plan and my weight and measurements stayed the same despite all the work I had been doing at TMR (or maybe another way to look at it is because of all my hard work my weight and measurements didn’t go up!!). The brighter side was that I improved in all fitness tests – so clearly it wasn’t the program that was failing it was all me. Right now I’m actually looking forward to my next retest! I thought it was coming up sooner than it is and I was actually a bit disappointed that I have to wait two and half more weeks (another thing I never thought I’d say).

I’m just coming to the end of the melt-down phase and I really feel like I’ve melted off the pounds. I only have two more sessions of melt down and I don’t know if I’m going to miss it or not. I’m finally getting used to all of the exercises and we seem to have moved beyond the exercises I really dislike, so it doesn’t seem to be as tough as it was four weeks ago. Last week I came in to TMR a couple of days in a row so James decided to switch up my workout a bit to give my body a break from melt-down and we did a workout from the build phase. I was sore for days! I keep forgetting how each phase has its own challenges! Build is all about focusing on specific muscle groups and working them with heavier weights than I’ve been using in build. My triceps, hamstrings and glutes were sore all weekend! I wonder if next week I’ll be wishing I was back in melt-down!

I wrote last week about another goal that I met – I climbed the CN Tower. That was one of my long-term fitness goals. Now that I accomplished that goal I feel I need to make another. I have always been envious of runners – it seems like a really freeing experience, being able to go out anywhere and run for as long as you want. It seems like once you’re in the zone it would be really peaceful. I haven’t experienced any of those things while running…yet! I’m hoping to though. I think my next long term fitness goal will be to run 5km short marathon. I haven’t set a timeline on this goal yet and I wasn’t really sure about it until right now, but I guess now that I’ve written it down I have to do it!! I’m still a beginner – this is going to take a lot of work. I have only really run about 1 mile without stopping and on a treadmill! I tried running in the “real world” a couple of weeks ago and found out how different it is then running on a treadmill. After my recent success, I’m encouraged and and believe I’m ready to set another goal that seems impossible and work on it over the few months. Wish me luck!