Push Harder

 "Push harder than yesterday

if you want a different

 tomorrow."

Pushing myself. Not an easy task. After all, I can sit here and do nothing all day and no will other than me will know or even care. That's where motivation comes in. I have to motivate myself. That's where goals come in. I have to push myself to achieve them. I have to hold myself accountable on the days I don't accomplish what I wanted to. At the same time, I have to acknowledge my achievement on the days that I do ! I fall down here. I am very good at criticizing myself for all the things I didn't do while ignoring all the things I did do. I'm also very good at finding excuses not to work out !! I'm putting more effort into pushing myself this week, in an effort to get my endurance back to what it was. There really is no excuse Monday through Friday because from 5 pm on my time is my own. I cut myself some slack on weekends but in reality there is no reason I can't workout Saturday and Sunday. I just choose not to. So even though I feel like I'm starting to get back into the exercise groove there is still a lot of work to be done. The key will be to stay in that groove !

A while back I decided it's time to stop counting days. I started Nutrisystem on January 4, 2019 and I remain committed to the program. I reached my goal weight on July 23, 2021 and lost over 150 pounds. After taking a break from exercise to focus on work I gained a bit of weight back. On December 28, 2021 I started working on getting back to my goal weight. The next milestone in this paragraph will be the day I get back to 150 or less pounds. I started this "new" blog since the journey I started back in 2019 is over and I'm transitioning to my new life. 

Breakfast was pancakes with sugar free syrup and a yogurt. Morning snack was a vanilla protein shake. Lunch was my old standard - a pepperoni pizza melt with a chef salad. Afternoon snack was cottage cheese and oatmeal cookies. Dinner was a chicken enchilada with roasted veggies. Evening snack was a lemon zest cake. 

From an exercise perspective, this week continues to show improvement. Today I spent about 75 minutes on the treadmill and for 60 of those minutes I pushed myself to power walk using my old pace schedule. It was NOT easy but I did it and it felt good ! Having never been physically fit, I never realized how fast your endurance will disappear if you get lazy. Here's to not making that mistake again ! I've been slow to push myself and I think a lack of confidence had a lot to do with that. I was thinking I just couldn't do it and the fact of the matter is, I can ! 

Work has been crazy busy so the week is just flying by. I do like being busy but I'm always glad when the weekend rolls around ! Weather today was chilly and we had some snow flurries this afternoon, but it didn't amount to anything. I was awake before 5 am today so it's been a long day. I thought about getting a workout in before work but in the end I decided to just have a relaxing morning. I don't regret that decision and I completed all the workouts on today's schedule, so I'm content. On that note, I'm headed for bed !