Day 22 - Impatience, Frustration, and Taking My Own Advice

Instant breakfast, heat-and-eat lunches, and 90 second workouts have sculpted us into creatures that want and need everything, immediately. Longer work days, coupled with shorter lunches, breaks and vacations have caused us to compress the tasks we deem "non-essential" into shorter spans of time, or simply to "multitask". On my morning commute, if was to look to my left and then my right at any stop light, I would be guaranteed to see someone either talking on their phone, taking notes, eating some sort of fast food, drinking a coffee, or perhaps any combination of these. Never mind the fact that once the light turns green, they're also operating a motor vehicle. I'm not going to turn this into some diatribe about the safety issue this presents, I just wonder how to curb the madness.

On the morning of Day 22, our impatient culture had bled back into my own way of thought. I stepped on the scale only to see a slight improvement over last week. "At this stage, I should be in full swing", I thought to myself. "My pants aren't feeling any looser, my shirts are still far too snug, and I'm almost a month into this.", loosely translated, "I want results, and I want them NOW.". My previous weight-loss effort was very much an instant gratification process, losing the bulk of the weight in the first 6-8 weeks. However, this was due to making drastic physical changes that I wasn't mentally prepared for. It obviously didn't work, and my current thoughts were focused on what I was already deeming another failure. "What do I need to change? How can I improve my results? Why is this not working? When will I feel like I'm really progressing?" I turned to my own words for advice, and perused my previous entries.

Patience is a virtue, and can be easily cast aside when looking to the future. I again, was getting too far ahead of myself here. My natural reaction was to panic, looking to place blame before the outcome was even determined. I looked to that popsicle I had on Day 14, or the meal where I may have eaten a little more than I should have on Day 9, but why? A deep analysis of all of these factors turned up the same answer every time. Patience and determination will be rewarded with results. If I keep doing all the right things, change will happen. I'm not looking for the quick fix here, I want to be healthy and to stay that way. It is a long process, and one that I've still only just begun.

Though I was still feeling slightly disappointed with my progress thus far, I knew that if I sat back and felt sorry for myself I'd risk derailment. Refocused, I hit the treadmill for an uphill climb followed by a flatland run for a total of 40mins, taking me 2.5 miles. After the hockey experience from Day 19, I knew that I had to work towards getting myself in better condition for each upcoming game. I concluded the evening with my mat workout and felt much better about my accomplishments thus far. Though the scale wasn't giving me much to cheer about, I was feeling physically stronger, and improving by the day. Though it remains a daily struggle to push myself, and the results sometimes don't show themselves as quickly as I'd like them to, some things in life are just worth the wait.