Combat – Sweat & Sparkle

I didn’t want to work out last night at all. I was tired and just not in the mood. I briefly contemplated just skipping it, but I quickly slapped that notion out of my head. I wasn’t bleeding, nothing was broken, there was no real reason to skip my workout except I felt a bit lazy. Letting my workouts be negotiable and “if I feel like it” is what led to me being so overweight in the first place.

I dug out my Les Mills Combat set and did the 45 minute workout. I was dragging through parts of it, but when I finished, I was really glad I worked out instead of giving to bad habits that are hard to kill.

Yesterday I asked my boyfriend about the hotel for our trip next week. He said it doesn’t have a fitness room. *Gulp*. Okay, things just got more complicated. Well, I can take our portable DVD player and some DVD’s that don’t require a lot of space to work out. I don’t feel comfortable heading out for runs or walks in a neighborhood I know nothing about.

I am going to print a paper food diary as a back-up for those three days. That way there is no excuse if I don’t have a signal to get on the MyFitnessPal app to log my food. I want to log on MFP if I can, though, so I have the accountability of knowing others are going to see my food diary!

Ultimately the only thing I can do is decide to stick to my plan and then do it. Fitness room or not, eating at home or eating out or at a relative’s home, it is going to come down to whether I want this enough to make smart choices or if I’m going to be stupid and fall back into the dumbass behavior that led me to being 80 pounds overweight in the first place.

On that note…on tap for tonight is some running at the gym!

My week started off on a bad note: I came home from work on Monday feeling exhausted and lethargic, and my stomach hurt for some reason. I was planning to work out anyway, but then my boyfriend came home and started talking to me about his day. Of course I don’t mind, because lord knows he listens to me endlessly talk about mine, but the longer I stood still and listened, the less motivated I felt to work out. He suggested taking a rest day, and I admit I didn’t fight the idea very hard.

A rest day is fine, but then I ordered pizza and wings for dinner. And I didn’t eat just one wing, or a few. I devoured a barnyard’s worth of those bad boys. When I entered my meal into my food diary, I was stunned at how many calories I had just consumed.

Tuesday was time to redeem myself, right? I went for a run that evening that turned into limping around and stopping to stretch every five minutes. I gave up on the running part altogether and just walked. I came home discouraged and angry and frustrated. I don’t know what the issue is. Almost instantly, when I try to run outside, I get a deep pain in both shins. And I think I can train for a half marathon? I came home, ripped down my 5K training schedule from the wall, and threw it away.

Finally, Wednesday, I got a great workout in. I have the Les Mills Combat set, and I have never done the hour-long workout. I decided to give it a go last night and hopefully make up for two crappy days. I felt pretty strong, definitely sweating and working hard, for the first 40 minutes, then suddenly hit a wall. I had 20 minutes to go and felt like I was going to die. I really wanted to finish, so I modified what I had to and completed the workout. Booyah!

I definitely earned my shower last night! I was sore almost immediately after the workout, so I knew I’d be feeling it today, and I certainly am. It felt good to finally have a good day.

Once upon a time, a bad day would have been an excuse to write off the entire week, go for broke, pig out, and forget about working out the rest of the week. I may have struggled to get this week started, but I am proud I didn’t let it turn into a week-long binge. I have a long, long way to go, and my weight loss so far isn’t even noticeable, but changes like this in mindset and attitude are crucial to me finally getting to my goal.