This week I’ve thought actively about what I want and what I am doing and what I am learning.  I’ve made notes about these things now for a long time in my blogging but only recently done so in a weekly list for reflection.   Nine weeks in and I’ve seen visual progress in my journey, had a few moments of discouragement and many many moments of reworking my plan to tweak it as I feel necessary.  I’m closer to finding my sweet spot and the plan that works for me but there is so much learning that I’m doing that it’s hard right now for me to feel that I’m at a place where I can ride it out and watch results for long before tweaking.  Thus far I’m at about 10 days into a set eating and workout routine.  I’m cycling my carb intake to ramp up to cardio day on which I dump calories and carbs.  Following cardio day#1 I ramp up for the next 2 days then drop again for cardio day#2 and end the week starting to build again.  It feels like the right plan so I’m in a holding pattern watching.  This is the first real pause in my constant change in my plan while I am experimenting to find where I need to be to get what I want.  So this week here is what I have learned.

• It’s ok to have a diet rest day. I have planned rest days on Saturdays and have stuck to that like glue for several weeks, nearly since week 1.  What I’ve learned this week is that an unplanned rest day is ok too.  I had a hair appointment this week on Tuesday which is my cardio day and not the day I would really have planned a hair appointment on had I thought of it when I made the appointment.   I thought I would work out at home perhaps on the bike when I got home but if you’ve ever had your hair foiled, washed and cut you know it’s a two-hour process at the minimum.  That foiled (pun intended) my plan for working out when I got home.  I’m a person of routine.  I need to workout right after work every day without fail or interruption or I get derailed from my plan and just say forget it and start again tomorrow.  So I didn’t workout when I got home but I was ok with that figuring I would make up the cardio day the next day which I did.  Back on track.
• Compliments from your significant other are great motivators.  Everyone is their own worst critic and I am no different. I’m always criticizing with an eagle eye and I’m never truly happy with my progress.  It’s just the way it is.  I was laying in bed one morning this week and my husband was giving me a back rub before we had to get up.  He said to me “you’re getting so small.  It’s the tightest you’ve ever been”.  I smiled and thanked him and if I could have gone to the gym at that moment, I would have just to do another workout!  It made me feel so happy and accomplished in my mission.
• You must be able to adjust on the fly.  Let’s face it.  Life doesn’t always go the way you want it to and if you can’t punt and change your plan on the fly you are doomed to fail or you will be unable to jump hurdles in your path.
• You must be faithful to your plan and yourself and put yourself first where it’s pertinent.  I found that it’s important to be able to assess what should and should not get in the way of your plans.  There was snow forecasted for this morning which was scheduled to start at or around 4 am.  I usually food shop on Saturdays but no way am I doing so in a snowstorm so the choice was either go Friday after work and skip the gym or workout at home.  I could wait and go on Sunday but that means no goodies until then.  OR I could go after the gym on Friday.  BOOM!  That was my answer. Now I do not want to go to the grocery store after the gym because I’m probably going to be hungry and the bill is always worse when I go hungry.  This I was willing to do, however, because I needed to go to the gym for myself.  Period.  If I don’t make me a priority then what else will I justify blowing off my workouts for?

Overall I have learned that I am a priority, I am motivated further by realizing others are seeing my progress and rest days are good for me.  It will be interesting to see what lessons come in this next week.