Minor Rut - More of a Rutlett (mmmm....crumbed rutlett.)

I'm not really on strike, but I have downed tools this week. I just felt a bit emotionally weary and stopped tracking and didn't go to the gym Thursday or today. I'm not worried about it really. I haven't given up or stopped - I just needed to stop thinking about food and exercise and weight for a few days. I'll have the rest of the day off from thinking and get back into it tomorrow.

It's weird - It takes a fair bit of mental energy to change life-long habits and sometimes it's nice to just not think about it. So that's what I've been doing for a few days. I had PT on Monday and went to the gym on Tuesday - but Wednesday, Thursday and today are just going to be no-brainers. No gym, just eat whatever (that is eat anything NOT eat everything) and have a bit of a rethink.

The rethink is about planning my the next steps of my weight loss and fitness. I joined the gym in September in the the four months since then I've improved my strength and overall fitness and improved my eating considerably. But now I have to do more. I've got the quick-wins, now I have to stop coasting along and put in some work.

Weight loss is achieved through taking in fewer calories than you expend - unless you chop your bum off with a cleaver there is no other way to do it. Given the time I have available to commit to exercise at the moment I'm doing well on the expenditure side of things. There is about 45 minutes of walking built into my work days just getting to and from different train stations, and almost all weekdays begin at the gym with a minimum of 30 minutes sweating and exertion. I don't do any sessions that are easy or relaxing. Most days it's more like 45 minutes anyway.

So at this point I don't think I need to change my exercise routine except to work harder as my capacity to do so increases and do something planned on weekends rather than treat them as a day off.

It's really the food thing that needs re-jigging. My exercise is essentially fine for me at the moment and the two tweakings above will help as well. I have to find a better approach to food though because although I've made some progress it's a little bit "two steps forward and one step back" right now.

I'm having a "stocktake" with PT Quagmire on Wednesday next week and I know there will be some good results on the tape measure (um, the jeans I'm wearing right now are comfortable instead of cutting into me like they used to). So that's good. I don't measure myself at home so I'll be interested to see what the results are.

Quagmire (I've got to stop calling him that - but it's just so accurate giggity-goo), said months ago that if I want some help with the food stuff then he's happy to give it. At the time I was just happy to plod along doing my thing - now I don't know. Maybe I'll try his three week "kick up the bum" plan. Maybe I'll just be a bit more focused on what I'm doing and not let sneaky little icypoles or jelly snakes find the way into my mouth. Can't hurt though - and it might be the level of novelty that I need. Sometimes it's good to just have a bit of a change to what I'm doing.

So I suppose I'm in a bit of a rut and I just need something different to brighten me up a bit.