360fit Blog – Keeping your Promise

So my house has taken a major upheaval in the last few weeks. Big changes that have caused me to be extremely busy all of a sudden, without time to brace myself or prepare.

At the beginning of the Summer I made myself a promise. I promised that no matter what I would not slack on my fitness. I made appointments with Devin twice a week to do some crazy killer workouts. I vowed I wouldn’t miss it (except for my one week of vacation which I still did a workout – just not with Devin). It was a promise I made to myself.

We often make promises to others – and our integrity is shown through whether or not we keep those promises. But what happens when we make promises to ourselves and we don’t keep them?

keeping the promises we make to ourselves we learn to love yourself. And even better, when we make the promise, and we keep it, it motivates us to keep going forward, which is just what I’ll do. I’ve made and kept my promise not to break my appointments with Devin.

I haven’t missed one workout. Your promise may be different, it could be to eat a salad once a day, to include vegetables at mealtimes, to drink 4l of water, to attend 3 classes a week. We all start somewhere, and build up from there. So now I’ve successfully kept my promise to myself for just over 2 months, I’m ready to build from there.

My fitness has been great, I’m kicking butt in the back parking lot through the heat and humidity, I’ve devoured any challenging workout Devin has thrown my way through the busy times, the slow times, the crazy hectic times, through my happy moods, my angry moods and my “not-so-motivated” moods.

My next step is to clean up the eating My meals have been good. My snacking… not so much.

So Devin has challenged me to post about what I’m eating on a daily basis and keep a journal. This part frightens me, because then I’m being terribly transparent and when I mess up – you all will see. But I’m human, right? And if there’s anything I want people to know is that this journey is REAL. There’s no switch that you can flick and all of a sudden you won’t crave bad food, you won’t indulge, you won’t mess up. I can guarantee I will not be perfect. My food will not be 100%. But the promise I’m making is that I will improve.

More specifically I will have a healthy snack in the evening (my most worst snacking time). I will not have Pepsi on weekdays, and only one on Saturday (sounds foolish eh, addicted to POP…but that’s me…I love Pepsi). I will up my water intake. There’s my primary promises – which I will build on once I accomplish these. The scale is an evil sinister contraption, and it can set your mood, motivation, view of yourself and much else, just by glaring at the numbers at the end of your toes.

For me, the scale doesn’t mess with my mind too much. I will get frustrated or celebrate, but I don’t let it affect me. And the reason I do that is because it isn’t a true measurement of success in your weight loss journey. I know you’re thinking “Um, but how else can you measure if you’ve actually lost weight”…good question.

The last two weeks the scale has actually stayed exactly the same….hasn’t gone up, but unfortunately hasn’t gone down. Now I know some things I need to change to help push it in the direction I want to go (namely my promises I’ve made). I just need to up my game. But while the scale hasn’t moved – my clothes have….and they’ve moved down. Meaning falling off my body.

My last workout with Devin was a crazy tough workout, but I kept smiling because I had to keep yanking my pants up. We ran around the building and I kept running while hauling them up. So the scale hasn’t moved, but something is still happening. I can also feel when I’m on par with my food and when I’m off par…My body tells me. When I’m not eating right, I’m sluggish and tired.

When I am, I’m full of energy and vibrant. All this to say – make a promise to yourself. One that will get you closer to your goals. Keep that promise.

Start small and build up. Start loving yourself and treating yourself the way you should by keeping those promises. If you want to share your promise I’d be happy to hear them – and we can work together! I can’t stress enough that if you are on this fitness journey, you are not alone! And if you ever need a friend to join along – count me IN!

#ProjectLiz