Get Back on Track!

Last night I took a walk with my husband, and it hit me that I’d been off track with my health plan for a good week. It’s crazy that it took me a week to even realize this!

I also set insanely high writing goals, ones I realistically knew wouldn’t work based on my writing style. This will come as a shocker, but I haven’t met those either. I don’t feel bad about it. I’ll explain why in a little bit. But all this getting-off-track stuff brought out my analytical side. Why, after months of steady progress with my healthy habits, had I slid out of them?

I had to identify what I was doing differently.

1. I stopped tracking my calories, my exercise and my water intake.

I use an app called MyFitnessPal on my phone to count calories (type in the food you ate and you can pick from a list) and track my exercise. Yet, I hadn’t logged anything since last Tuesday. To be fair, we were out of town for a good portion of that time, but still.

2. I stopped making exercise a priority.

Due to summer scheduling problems, my friend and I had to drop our twice weekly yoga sessions to one. I’d also been doing a mini cross-fit workout once or twice a day, and I really was noticing results with that. However, I wasn’t doing cross-fit either, and they literally take less than five minutes to do! Oh, and jogging twice a week? Had morphed into a long walk now and then. Ain’t nobody getting in shape with a weekly exercise tally of one yoga session and a random long walk.

3. More and more “junk food” snacks were edging out fruits and vegetables.

All the small choices I make add up over time. They were adding up, all right. Right onto my hips. The result? An overall feeling of fluffiness. Plus, my mood went from powerful to meh.

I’ve been here before, friends. And I’ve gotten back on track. I will this time, too.

How I’m getting back on track.

Stop doing what doesn’t work, and start doing what does.

It’s as simple as that.

Starting today, I’m:

1. Tracking calories, exercise and water intake.

I truly don’t mind doing this. It’s not difficult, and it keeps me focused.

2. Making exercise a priority.

Yes, this means deciding how many workouts and which ones I’ll do, but shouldn’t I be doing that anyway? Yes.

3. Eating fruit and vegetables before junk food.

I will never give up junk food. I love candy, chips, and soda. But I enjoy them in moderation. It’s time to get back to that.

As far as my writing goals, I don’t need to get back on track, because I AM on track. I set way too high of goals, and I know it. It takes me a lot longer to write the first three chapters of a novel than the rest of the book. I could rush, but I would just end up spending the same amount of time or more fixing them later. Since I track how many hours I write and how many words I write, I know I’ve put in my best effort.

How do you get back on track when you slide away from your goals?

Have a fun weekend!