A lot of this got me into a spell of reflection. Sometimes I feel like we treat a good portion of our life like we do loose change. Minutes here, minutes there. And the supply of time many of us have, much like with money, can seem comfortably abundant. Perhaps even trivially insignificant. We are careful about some expenditures, but for the most part we float through life like we sift through bills -- it's a routine that we just "do" with no purposeful appreciation. And when it comes to forecasting into the future, so many of us are guilty of only focusing on the macro-issues and viewing life events like currency in our wallets; we think in terms of dollar bills without any regard for the change.
Something that has always fascinated me about life is starting a new journey and envisioning how it will all play out. I used to do it at the beginning of the new school year... thinking about homecoming, football games.... what boys I'd be sitting next to in my new classes, what dreams may come true. Envisioning how I'd look in my Prom dress, what shoes I'd wear with my golden graduation gown. The parties, the new adventures. I've done the same thing with new relationships, new jobs, and especially new years. But the fascinating part of it was always at the end, when I looked back and saw how NOTHING occurred the way I had envisioned. Nothing transpired as quickly and effortlessly as I had forecast. There was no magic, no fairytale explosion of lyrical happenstance; it rather was a lot of toil, patience, hard work and faith. Also a lot of disappointment and shortcomings, because often times in waiting for the "magic" to happen, a path of inaction was elected instead. And in the end, I would always see that the "magic" was never in how things fell into place. It wasn't even in my determination to simply not let things fall apart. The magic, rather, was in the growth. The magic was looking back at where I started -- my empty wallet full of big ideas and purchases to be made -- and then seeing how it was the toil of day-to-day life, the earning of mere pennies on the dollar, that had contributed to the accumulation of wisdom which transformed me into a greater, more capable, more well-rounded and accomplished human being. It was never the dollars or the big-ticket dreams that changed me. Instead, it was all the loose change, the minutes that I never thought about and all of those passing moments in between the dreams and desires of macro-life that I collected in a tin can in the corner of my mind without a passing glance, that were the building blocks of my foundation. They composed the scatter plot line connecting who I was to who I was becoming.When I awoke this morning, I was checking my calendar for meetings when I noticed that today is July 20th. It marks the ending of my 25th week of training and clean eating, and signifies that I am only 11 days away from celebrating my HALF-YEAR anniversary of starting this crazy lifestyle revolution! And that's when my thoughts from the night prior really came full circle and sort of blew my mind in the quiet moments of the morning. I have recently been looking back on my journey and can't believe how far I've come. I had to put my head down and just keep fighting the current. I refused to stop, I refused to let my mind tell me it couldn't be done. This forced me to really live in the moment and take it one week, one day, sometimes even just one hour at a time. And now, as I lift my head for a breath of air before I continue onto the second stage of fighting against the current, I've looked back at the shore where I started and can't believe how far from land I've come. It was the change that had collected in my piggy bank - each hour I made it avoiding caving into treats, each individual squat, each single stride that took me farther from the start line and closer to the finish. It was an accumulation of the moments I never thought about and that never seemed to really matter; it was each tiny struggle (which subsequently turned into each tiny victory) that made up the baby steps which led to the big things happening. There was no magic nor a singular moment where I woke up and said, "HALLELUJAH! I lost 15 pounds over night!" There was no point where it suddenly got easier. It was more of a subtle adaptation and a certain strength of both body and mind that developed which made believing I could do it, easier. The faith that I could do it and the determination to stick with it have become the pillars of my success thus far.
For the past few weeks I've been trying to figure out what to blog when it came to my 6-month mark. It is a tremendous milestone for me, because I had never thought I would make it this far. But from all of these thoughts that came to me this morning arose an inspiration of what to write. So, instead of waiting 2 weeks to blog for my half-year anniversary, I'm going to do it now :)
Things That Training and Clean Eating Have Taught Me About Life In General
- "I know one thing, that I know nothing." --Socrates
Before I set out on this mission, I thought I knew everything about fitness and nutrition. In reality, however, I only knew 100% of what I thought I knew, or wanted to believe. Looking back, I can say with a small degree of shame that deep down I knew I was misinformed and/or flat-out wrong. But I was too confident in my own ignorance, too fearful of change, and too proud to accept that I had wasted countless years doing the wrong thing.
I find myself now so open to trying new things. And doing them has become so easy for me. The success that I've had at implementing change, whether it's been quitting dairy, cutting out fruit and store-bought protein bars, learning to do weights before cardio, or simply fighting off a temptation as it comes one hour at a time, has laid a foundational precedent for all the times that have followed when a challenge has arisen. Simply put: I've learned to never say "I can't" until I've walked a mile in those shoes...or however long it takes 'til I've proven that I CAN. :) - "Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother." --Khalil Gibran
Doubt? I don't know if that word has a statute of limitations. 28 years of doubt had calcified into my heart a false truth, one that told me that making it this far was impossible. But it wasn't just that it was impossible; it was entirely unreasonable, unsustainable, and unfathomable. Never in my life have I sunk my teeth into something so steadfastly and refused to let go. Never have I gripped onto something so tightly and held on for dear life, even when the pain and the trials amassed, for the sheer principal of one last chance to prove that I was not as conquerable as I had led myself to believe.
I have accomplished a great many things with my diet and training. Among other things, did you know I had never even used the oven before I started clean-eating? I now make my own homemade protein bars, for crying out loud! I've given up all processed food, and condiments that made healthy food "taste better". I've given up soda, milk, juice and artificial sweeteners. I've pushed myself to impossible limits in my training, and literally do everything in reverse from what I used to do before. I've beaten all my records and all my expectations, and I realize now that I have only just reached the tip of the iceberg of what I am capable of.
These all may seem like insignificant feats, but they represent something far greater: They represent the shell of doubt I have encased myself within for the last 28 years, crumbling all around me. I am breaking free of all of the constraints I now realize I was placing on myself. There's this sense of freedom, this empowerment that calls for blood now, and a reckoning for the countless chains I've shackled myself with - not just diet / fitness goals, but other things I've allowed myself to believe were out of my scope of capacity. Educational endeavors, travel adventures and athletic pursuits I've been too timid to pursue... I knew clean-eating would be a challenge, but I didn't realize how much I would learn about perseverance, will power, and the inner strength I am capable of harnessing. For the first time in possibly forever, all those quotes about being able to achieve anything I put my mind too are no longer cliches; they are simply reminders of something I already know to be true. - "I always say if the marathon is a part-time interest, you will only get part-time results." --Bill Rodgers
For any of you just starting out on this wild adventure, I'm going to tell you the cold hard truth right now about everything you need to know regarding clean eating and training in an effort to achieve your goals and dreams.
Right now, you are standing at the starting line of a race that you may or may not have trained for, but it really doesn't matter because any concept of distance you currently have of it will not match up to the reality of the challenge before you. Some of you are more well-equipped or prepared than others; some of you have had prior experience with this race, some of you may already consider yourselves experts on the course. Others of you, however, may have tried it before and failed; even others may not even know the course at all. Some of you are swimming in confidence, and know what will be required of you. You say to yourself, "Self, it just is what it is. I just gotta do what I need to do to get to the finish line", while others of you are drowning in fear of the challenge, your own self-doubts having prevented you from perhaps even approaching the starting line until just this moment.
None of this matters. It matters not how prepared or not you are, how many legs up you think you have on the competition, or what pace you tackle the race at. You think pace is an indicator of future success?? Ask the tortoise and the hare that question. It isn't about pace, it is about PERSEVERANCE. You want to know the truth? The truth is that it doesn't matter how disadvantaged you feel, or how tall the odds seem to be stacked. The truth is that everyone is starting at the start line, and finishing at the finish line. And any idea you have about how difficult it might be, or your awareness of the temptations and struggles you'll face and how much they will just suck, will not compare to the moment when you are fully immersed in said challenge and feel the crushing weight of keeping your eyes focused on the finish line and letting your desire to reach it supersede the enchantingly hypnotic voice of failure telling you to give up and give in. The strong and the weak, the experienced and the inexperienced, the morbidly obese and the skinny fat folks alike, ALL face the SAME moments of pressure, of doubt, of exhaustion, of temptation and weakness and hardship. This course is not easy FOR ANYONE.
So stop making excuses for yourself. When you are 10 miles into this race and feel like you have been going forever, and the humidity increases and you find yourself on a 8% incline hill and want to give up, thinking you can't possibly push harder or dig deeper, that life is demanding too much of you and you've fully lost sight of what this journey means to you in the face of immediate bodily or psychological pain, stop thinking. Turn your ears off. Turn your brain off. Put the blinders up over your eyes, and let your body do the work. There's a saying that goes, "The mind will give up a thousand times before the body does", and I can speak to you with 100% experience that nothing rings truer than this. Your mind excels at telling you lies that most people won't even give their body a chance to refute. And if you choose to cave in and not repeatedly give absolutely every ounce of blood, sweat and tears you have to this endeavor, you can expect nothing short of sub-par results, not to mention you will be cheating yourself out of the experience of a lifetime.
And you will see that it was never the mile markers along your race that mattered. It wasn't even in the most memorable challenges that you had anticipated or battled against. You'll notice that all the results you garnered, and on a bigger scale, the growth you have experienced as a person, were a direct product of each individual step you took along the way. Yes, there will be detours. Yes, you will slip and fall. But those were already factored into the equation. The magic wasn't ever in the sunk costs or anticipated victories; the magic was in each time you chose to put one foot in front of the other, instead of taking off your shoes and sitting down along the roadside.
So those are the more profound things I have learned so far in just this half year so far. And I am BEYOND excited to see what the next 6 months have in store for me.
So those are the more profound things I have learned so far in just this half year so far. And I am BEYOND excited to see what the next 6 months have in store for me.
Until then, a little progress report!!!
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| 18 pounds and 6.6% body fat shed since the 3rd week of my program, when I did my first weigh-in. |
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| Week 22 |
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| Week 23 |
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| End of Week 25 |
So. Here's to adding up all the change, and looking forward to 6 more months of making small moments larger than life! :) <3
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