Finding the Time and Inspiration

I'm busy. You're busy. We're all busy. But we've all got the same 24 hours in the day. How we decide to use them is up to us.

Last winter/spring/summer and into the early fall, I was so dedicated, getting up at 4:45am to get my workouts finished before anyone else was awake. That still needs to happen -- if I start work, I KNOW I won't stop to workout -- but I've definitely been pushing the limits, staying in bed just a little bit longer, running just a little bit later, having to fast forward through some parts of my workout. I hate that. When I commit to something and put a workout on my schedule, I like to follow through. Plus, when I don't get up and get moving, the whole day feels rushed and running a little behind.

I've talked about how I'm training for a triathlon, and now I realize it's time to recommit to my goals. Over the past few weeks, sports channels have been running recaps of the Ironman that took place in Kona, Hawaii. The Ironman is a triathlon on a HUGE scale. I always enjoy watching it, but this year I've watched with greater interest because next summer, I will swim, bike, run, but on a much smaller scale.

The professional Ironman athletes are amazing, but it's the everyday citizens who are INSPIRATIONAL. Twice I've sat through the show that follows some of the "normal" people who choose to compete in the Ironman. There are cancer patients (yes, patients!), cancer survivors, a fire fighter who ran the marathon portion in full gear in honor of comrades killed on 9-11, people my age (which makes me think I need to ramp it up!), and even people in their 60s and 70s! Each time a competitor crosses the line, the announcer welcomes them saying, "You are an Ironman!" How cool is that? From the first person to the last.

If you're a P90X aficianado, you know who Tony Horton is (P90X creator). But what you may not know is that his sister, Kit, is a Beachbody coach. In a recent blog post, she wrote about all of the excuses about exercise she'd had in her head over the years. How familiar do these sounds? So familiar to me!

-I work long hours, I can’t get the workout in
-My travel schedule makes it difficult to eat healthy on the road
-My family won’t eat what I make and I’m tired of making two separate meals
-P90X workouts are an hour long, most days, I just don’t have an hour to workout (or 90 minutes for Yoga !!!)
-The holidays are coming and it’s challenging to eat well this time of year with all the temptations around
-It’s just not normal to eat healthy all the time, you should be able to indulge once in a while
-Before I know it, the day gets away from me and I haven’t got my workout in
-Cooking healthy meals takes too long and it’s so expensive
-Or how about the infamous, "I'll start on Monday."

When you watch the Ironman, you realize it's time to throw all those excuses out the window. The Ironman competitors made a choice to take on the most difficult athletic challenge and many other daily choices to commit to their training and fuel their bodies in the best way to be able to compete. Plain and simple: this race became their priority.

Do we all need to start training for the Ironman? No, of course not. But it's time to start making our own choices -- nutritionally, physically, mentally.

What does making exercise and healthy eating a priority really mean? It means more than doing the workout when you really don’t feel like it and saying no to the birthday cake at the office. It means getting back on track the day after you’ve had a bad day. It means feeling good and feeling good about yourself and your accomplishments for the first time in a long time. It means saying no to crappy food not because you have to talk yourself into it, but because you truly don’t want it AND because you've learned how badly you'll feel afterwards and you're tired of digging back out of that hole! Making conscious, consistent good decisions about your nutrition and fitness will give you the strength, perseverance and determination to make the right choice every time you’re faced with one.

You'll be surprised how quickly it will be a good habit. You'll soon wonder how you ever lived any other way!

Best Laid Plans

Today I was all jazzed up to get my eating back on track. And I did. I love it when my eating and workouts sync up and I'm feeling all noble and smug. I can go for weeks and months staying on track and rocking it.

And then it's like I need a little break where I still workout, I just don't eat as well. I'm just coming out of a period like that so it was good to really eat well today and feel good about it.

This is what today looked like:
Workouts: HIIT 15, Tone 30

Breakfast: buckwheat groats, chia seeds, raisins, almond milk
Snack: Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, Craisins
Lunch: Shakeology, almond milk, almond butter
Snack: Apple, Nut-Thins
Dinner: Cooking Light Frittata, roasted potato wedges

Calories eaten: 1446 or maybe 1466. I can no longer remember.
Calories burned: 1672 as of 8:30pm. I won't get to a 500 calorie deficit--too much sitting today.

Here's the bummer. Tomorrow I have to go have about a 3cm patch of skin "excised" off my arm. Skin cancer, don't you know. It's a drag and I don't know how long I'll have to take off working out, but really, in the big picture of things, I need to let it go. It is what it is. I'm sure I'll be able to substitute in other types of workouts, but I probably won't be able to do TurboFire while the stitches are still in. I just had a small spot removed a few weeks ago (which is when I found out the spot was a melanoma) and the doc didn't want me throwing any TurboFire punches for a week. Again, trying to keep it in perspective.

And today's public service announcement: see your dermatologist once a year. I almost let this one get away from me and it was borderline very bad. That is all.

Finding the Balance

A friend sent me a link to this great edition of Gwyneth Paltrow's newsletter, Goop. It's all about finding the balance in your life and offers a glimpse into a day in the life of Gwyneth and a few of her friends.

I found it very interesting and enlightening to realize that they all struggle--just like I do, just like you might--to find the time to get it all done. But something that really jumped out at me, they make a point of getting workouts in (at least two of them do, the other was pregnant at the time!) no matter what's going on because they realize the benefits.

Today didn't start as planned and I was so tempted to skip my morning workout. Last night I had this mental plan that I'd be out of bed at 7am for my workout because I knew we'd be gone most of the day at a pond hockey tournament. Pond hockey is fun--lots of good hockey and socializing. I didn't want to miss it.

First, my husband and I stayed up WAY too late last night watching DVR'd shows (we love the Good Wife and Southland) and we didn't just watch one show--we watched THREE! We dragged ourselves to bed at nearly 1am, which is ridiculous. Sometimes it happens that I'm up that late working, but that's pretty rare these days now that both boys are in school and I can mostly work during the day (unless I realize almost too late that a day like Martin Luther King, Jr., day is coming and I didn't get quite enough work done of Friday to make up for it...).

Anyway, I was so tired this morning that I didn't get out of bed until about 8:40am. I had about an hour of exercise scheduled. Kids needed to be fed. My husband was putting all of the boxed up Christmas decorations away and vacuuming. Hockey gear needed to be prepared. There was just a lot going on. Finally, at 10am, I zipped downstairs and squeezed my workout in. I had a fleeting thought at one point that I would just wait until after pond hockey to exercise, but I know myself far too well at this point in life--I wouldn't have done it. I knew I'd be tired, kids would need to be fed (the dang things are always hungry), hockey gear would need to be unpacked, I'd want to mess around on Facebook and blog, etc. etc. I will make excuses quicker than anyone--trust me!

Tomorrow will be the same story. We'll see how I do getting my workout in before day two of pond hockey. Nope, let's change that. I will do it. Period.

Sorry for a lack of blog post yesterday. Before the DVR marathon I was making 1 million cookies for pond hockey. It was my cheat day. I was happy to discover I was down .6 of a pound from Monday. I'm sure I erased that during my cheat day because I ate a load of salty popcorn. But I ate minimal cookie dough. Small victories.

Yesterday's workout: Fire EZ 55. Now that I'm on the mend physically, one of my goals for next week is to perform some of the move high impact and see if that burns more calories.

Today's workouts: Core 20, Stretch 40

Food
Breakfast: Chocolate Shakeology, almond milk
Lunch: PBJ at the pond (taken from home so I could avoid the hot dogs, chips, cookies, etc.)
Snack: Pumpkin seeds
Dinner: Salad w/greens, egg, celery, tomato, cucumber, olives, feta, avocado, olive oil, lemon juice, Bragg's.
Snack: 5 cups popcorn

Total: 1569

Calories burned as of 8:13pm MST: 1869. I'll get a 500 calorie deficit in--yay!

Here's something "fun" to look forward to: sometime in early February, when I am past an upcoming magazine deadline, there is no new, good snow for me to skip out of work for, and I am caught up on my weekly work AND house stuff (sounds like it may never happen) I am going to have a Biggest Loser Day. What is that? I'm not 100 percent sure, but one of the things they talk about on Biggest Loser is that the people at the Ranch have to burn 6,000 calories a day. That's a lot! I struggle to burn 2,200 a day (midnight to midnight). So I'm curious. What does one have to do to burn 6,000 calories a day? Now, heavier, out of shape people's bodies just burn more--someone might burn 3,000 just through daily activities without even working out. But I'm still curious and I'm going to have a day where I'm exercising all day just to see what happens.

Because I'm crazy like that.