Progress Isn’t Linear

I had some amazing love and response to my recent post about pressing pause on this journey. I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets overwhelmed with everything and just needs to breathe. It was really nice to not care for a little bit. To be honest, I’m pretty sure this horrid winter had a huge effect on my mentality. Seasonal Affective Disorder is a real thing people! Especially for this Florida girl. The snow and frigid temperatures really messed with my mental health!

Anyway, here I am back on track. I’ve started my new meal plan with Precision Fitness STL. Ever since I started working with Jamie I was working out 6 days a week on most weeks. I have had HUGE progress, but it has been craaaawling progress. Like 1/4″ at a time. It’s frustrating to work so hard and not see the results you want. We re-evaluated our plan and I started wearing my Polar HRM to track my calorie burn. It turns out he was estimating 700 calorie burns…. and I barely hit 500! So that is an extra 1200 calories a week that he added into my diet thinking I was burning it off. We readjusted and I’m hoping to see some better results in the coming weeks! Speaking of progress, can we talk about the scale? Gosh, I hate it. I found an old weigh in number from this time last year and realized I was 2lbs heavier now than I was last year. I wanted to whine about it, but I KNOW that I am in much better shape, so I found a picture to tell the story….

So, first of all my midsection is SO much smaller. I was in a tight size 16 then and now I’m in a 14. My face is far less swollen. and my arms, Shooooot. I have more muscle definition and less flab #BOOM #screwthescale

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While that helped me reconcile with the number on the scale, when it comes to my workouts I am still working on getting my head back in the game. I love WODs that I’m good at. ha. I struggle with the fact that I struggle so much. I know I put a lot of pressure on myself, especially being a coach. I want to set a good example and be dynamite, but I still struggle. Body weight WODs are my weakness. It’s like I start the WOD already defeated when I know I’m not going to be good at it. I hate that! I tend to favor strength movements, but in the scheme of things I’m not that strong. I’m average. Ugh. I hate that word. I am definitely improving, but I can’t help but feel like I should be further. I tell my clients that they are making progress all the time, but when it comes to telling myself that I have a hard time believing it. Dang my perfectionist desire to be the best at everything all the time!

I’m working on it. This is a journey. I’ve come so far in so many ways since I began this adventure. I’m proud of that progress. I’m not where I want to be, but thank God I’m not where I used to be!  Progress isn’t Linear. I just have to remember that!