Discipline

Short and to the point.  I am undisciplined.  Now, I realize there are varying degrees and one person's idea of something vague like "discipline" or "determination" won't match up with everyone else's idea of what that means.  But I'm only speaking for myself here.

I think what I need is a pretty hard and fast PLAN of action, that I will work to maintain, and not let external forces get in my way.  I do have a strong will.  God made me that way for a reason.  It doesn't have to be a bad thing.  It can work to my advantage.

I am going to plan out meals and food to best fuel my workouts.  I've contacted a local place that does metabolic testing so I can find out "exactly" how many calories my body is burning (hopefully at rest as well as during exercise, but we'll see about that).  I want to eat a "balanced" amount of carbs, protein and "good" fats.  (Chips do not fall into this category.)  I don't know exactly what triggers me to eat foods that aren't good for me, I really don't.  But I think I'm done trying to figure it out.  I'm going to say it doesn't matter why I do it....it only matters that I don't do it anymore.  I need to have a plan as to what I'm going to eat so that I'm not staring into a pantry filled with the junk my family eats (something I have given up on changing) when I need food.  Also, I need to come up with something to do when I have the urge to eat out of boredom.  Like a smoker who "needs" to replace the physical action of smoking, I need something to do instead of walking to the kitchen to grab something to put in my mouth.  (That might be a speed bump for me...we'll see.)

Also, I have really rejected the idea of having a "set in stone" training plan because there are so many things that factor into when I run and how much I run and if I can get a work out in first thing in the morning.  Again, I am letting externals control what happens.  It's mainly because I want to run with friends.  I want to keep my schedule flexible so that I won't train myself into injury.  I want to make sure my schedule is flexible enough so that I can still do spontaneous things as the come up.  The problem with that is when out of the ordinary things happen (a blizzard in Alabama!) my training takes a big hit.  I was stuck without a car with snow everywhere most of this past week.  Now, I COULD have wrapped my feet in plastic bags and still gotten some miles in.  I could have done P90X or any of the other workout videos I own.  I could have done any number of the workouts from magazines I have taken the time to rip out and save in a file.  Instead I ate more and more garbage and watched stupid stuff on TV.  Most of the week was not only wasted (meaning no gain), it was spent backsliding (meaning I'm worse off now than I was this time last week)**.

**You know, that's not a good way to look at it.  My darling husband would say this week was a valuable lesson learned.  I'm a very experiential learner.  This week has been an exercise in what life without a solid plan of action looks like---and I can say I have HATED it.  Not to mention my monthly "friend" is about to make her appearance.  This particular week in my cycle is the WORST for everything, and it just so happened to have fallen on a week that I not only didn't have my car (it's in the shop, again), but we also had 8 inches of snow (something I can't stand).  If I had been better prepared for "PMS week", maybe it would have gone better for me?

So, for today...after church I'm going to go to the pool and swim 500 yards (that's 20 lengths of the pool, 10 laps-I still have to find a good way to count them).  Then I will put together a plan for the coming week (workouts and food).  It's time to stop blaming externals for something that should be under my control.

Jane was right in her recent comment to me regarding my food/training confessional, I punish myself.  And Katie was right when she said food is not the enemy...I do need it to fuel my workouts....but it needs to be good fuel.  I would never consider putting cough syrup in the gas tank of my car and expect it to work properly.

Discipline doesn't have to look like this:

But maybe it can look like this and still work:

Thanks for stopping in...come again soon!
:D