Failure is NOT an option!

I watched the live feed with Talia the other night and she said "not succeeding was never an option" - Mish picked up on that phrase and asked "what does that look like?".  The 'Moment with Mish' hasn't left my mind, failing seems to be all I seem to do and there was one other great bit of advice.. tracking food and calories helps to keep one accountable.

These bits of advice have been floating around in my head ever since! I started my food diary on Calorie King straight away, logging that days food.  I then started my blog post for keeping track on a weekly basis (you should be able to find it in my post list for this month).  It is already working for me - I allowed myself to 'pick' yesterday and made a few 'not so good' choices with my food.  I was already out of routine as I missed my morning workout (I went, but DOMS in my neck/back and the resulting headache just didn't work! 10min rule followed and I chose to opt out) but I ended up having a run that afternoon after seeing just how many calories I had eaten!  If anyone is not doing it.. I highly recommend it!  If 1200cals per day is your goal, how do you know if you have met that goal unless you measure it?  I don't plan on calorie counting forever, but I do plan on getting my body used to good healthy food, and my mind used to seeing and feeling what 1200 cals looks like so I when I do stop calorie counting, I can be confident I am eating well!

I headed up this blog post as 'Failure is NOT an option' for a reason, as that is what I want to talk about.  Everyday I make excuses, be 'kind' to myself, and put things off until tomorrow.  I'm not failing I tell myself, but just re-negotiating. I didn't see anything wrong with this... I got where I wanted to be, just really really slowly.  And in all honestly, I wasn't really getting where I wanted to be.  I was getting close, but just not quite making it.  I fell short of 1st class Honours by 2%,  I have missed my goal date for finished my lit review (by a mile!), I haven't even managed to lose 5kg in a round yet, I have missed fitness tests, not met goals (not even checked what they are and forgotten about them!), I've not been meal planning or shopping, Oh hell, the list just goes on and on and on and on....  It is time to stop kidding myself!

Well, that is great, but how do I stop kidding myself.. how do I move on from here.  I am doing okay - getting to my workouts each day, just not putting in 100% - maybe 80%, getting frustrated that it is taking me over an hour to get the workout done so I am not finishing the abs and stretching.  In other words.. I am failing! Is accepting less then perfect okay?  Yup, for sure, and that has been an important step for me to realise and to still keep going even though I am not doing 100%.  But now I need to move on to the next lesson...

Failure is NOT an option!

What I want right now.. my real and true goals!
1. To lose weight and have a great strong body.
That means... a) stick to 1200 cals
and  b) follow my workouts to the letter!

Now, in order to meet a) I will need to keep my food diary, and in order to meet b) I will need to harden the f'up and get to the gym a bit earlier and leave a bit later.  Now, holidays are coming up which is going to throw a BIG spanner in the works.. but, I will just have to suck it up and go to the gym later in the day!

So how do I get in the right mindset to acheive these things?  Well this is what I am doing!  Last night I grabbed a sheet of paper and wrote by hand "Failure is NOT an option", and under it, I wrote 4 things I wanted to acheive today.

1) Finish my IL-6 structure section
2) Stick to 1200 cals for the day
3) New class - Fitball
4) Fill in some the contract for work.

These are things that WILL happen today - no matter what.  I went to fitball - I had to get the kids off to school a little earlier to get there in time, and Nat couldn't make so I went alone.  But I went.  Burnt a measly 100cals in 35mins but then went and did run/row intervals to burn off another 150cals in the next 25mins!
So far I am sticking to my cals - cooked up a yummy omlette after gym, had my oats for breakfast.. planned my snacks - just need to work out dinner!
Next I am going to collect all the papers I need for my IL-6 writing, will probably have to run into uni to use the internet/databases and printer to get some more papers as well - but write it I shall!
Filling in the contract will be my evening job!

So failure is not an option - off I go!