Maintaining the Momentum

Woops! Forgot to set my alarm this morning. Thank goodness for the Twins and Julia’s internal clock whereby at any point during the night, after 8 months of getting up regularly for our munchkins, she can pinpoint the exact hour and minute of the night… and do so without waking up!

So off to work I go, and I’m running on time. But I had to skip my stretching and strengthening routine I do each morning. Which, in truth, I’m quite pleased about, because I don’t enjoy the routine. In fact, it’s the worst part of my day. But, after five months of it, I’ve started to see and feel the benefits. So I’ve been persisting with it, despite the misery it causes me. But now I’ve missed it this morning. What do I do?

I could try and complete the 30 minute routine tonight? But that will be hard to do, since at night all I can manage usually after the twins are asleep is to crash in front of the TV. But, if I don’t catch up, I’ll feel incredibly bad. As though I’ve let myself down. Will I be able to motivate myself to get up tomorrow? And just forget today as a slip day? But if today is a slip day, does that mean I should pig out today and enjoy the slip day for all it’s worth? Believe me, I’ve done that before! Besides, I gave blood yesterday and weighed in at a really ideal weight, and I ran a great long run on Saturday. I had to eat a muffin at the blood bank to get my sugar levels and blood pressure up, so it’s not like this week has been a great week for diet or exercise. Maybe a slip week? Start all over again on Sunday? Re-calibrate. Hell, it sounds like fun not to live by my routine and eat whatever I like. A normal person for a couple of days!?!

But will I be able to re-calibrate next week. Or will I slip further? That is a challenge all of us face regularly. Life is not something we’re entirely in control of. There’s always unknown variables, and these variables will often disrupt our diet and/or exercise routine. How we respond to the disruption is what determines who we are as people and our success in all that we are aspiring to.

Often, we’re so tightly wound that after missing a few healthy meals or training runs (because of things out of our control) we start choosing to miss a few more, and in the end we let it slip away entirely. The challenge for all of us is to acknowledge the slip, hell even enjoy it like I am this morning, but ignore it as though it never happened after it’s done. Don’t try and compensate and catch up on the training run or eat extra healthy the next meal. That will only make the one after that all the harder mentally. And don’t beat yourself up about the slip. Just focus on your next run, or next meal. embrace the routine. And this is where the importance of having a routine really comes into play. So long as you have the routine and stick to the next event on that routine your slip won’t turn into a blow out and a crash and burn.

So, tomorrow, I’ll stick to my routine as usual and forget today even happened. Yesterday, after the muffin incident, I just went about eating my healthy salad lunch and my healthy dinner as though the muffin never happened. I stick to my diet and exercise as per my routine and refuse to beat myself up about it. That, in fact, is the hardest part. Not punishing myself for my slips. But so long as I don’t, I’ll be able to stick to my routine and continue towards my goals. Maintain my momentum.

P.s noticeably, or maybe not. I’ve slipped on these blogs… But, my way back in is to adhere to that routine – my Thursday post. Posting as though nothing even happened….

Happy Slipping! 🙂

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