Saturday 7 March 2015

Time to get FOCUSED

Hey Everyone,

To anyone that has seen me over the last few weeks, will have witnessed that I haven't been at my best. I have been rather run down and I have been extremely tired. This is mostly down to work, I will admit, I have had to work away from home for a few weeks. Staying in a hotel, working long hours, not being able to eat what I normally do, not training as much as normal and not sleeping well - all of this combined has not had a good effect on my body.

I have felt very deflated and warn down, I haven't been able to train as effectively as possible. So I have scaled back the amount of training sessions, which I was trying to do in the week. This has helped a lot and made me able to cope with everything else (sleep, eating, etc).

There is light at the end of the tunnel!!

I have helped launch the team I was working so hard to put in place. It has been live for 2 weeks, which means I don't need to be away from home, can scale back my hours to normal levels and focus on my actual day to day job (which I haven't actually been able to do, since I started it in January!).

Needs must, the above happens sometimes, yes maybe I over did it, maybe I should have said I can't work away from home, to focus on myself. BUT....it doesn't happen every day and I don't have to do that again for a while.

I haven't felt like me in the last few weeks, I have struggled with energy levels and being able to hit the gym. Which isn't like me. I push myself all the time and I started to feel like I wasn't me, by the fluffiness in my gut and feel like I'm further away from my goal.

I need to re-focus, get my drive and determination back!!




Thankfully for me.......yesterday that happened! On the train on the way back from Halifax, I was sitting there, trying to snooze and not succeeding. So I started to think 'what can I do, to get back to how I was?' and I started to make notes. Why I do, what I do? How have I done it before? How am I going to do it this time? I then started to watch some vlogs from my favourite fitness guru 'Nikki Blackketter', she really inspires me. I'm not sure exactly why or how, but whenever I watch her videos, it makes me want to train, eat well and achieve a similar physique to her.

Link to Nikki's youtube (vlog) page: https://www.youtube.com/user/nikkiblackketter

So I'm starting small, next week I will do the follow:
  1. I will drink 4 litres of water a day (I will struggle with this!!)
  2. I will eat at least one bag of broccoli, carrot and cauliflower mix a day, to get my veg in and my fibre.
  3. I will get my carbs from veg, not wraps or bread
  4. I will train 5 times this week, 4 training and 1 conditional
  5. I will get at least 7 hours good quality sleep a night
I think I'll leave it there.... I'm only focusing on one week at a time, for now. I have my longer terms goals, but at the moment, I only want to think about the above.

I want to go back to regularly losing weight and my body fat percentage reducing, I want to get to the leanest I've ever been and really push my body to it's maximum. You must never forget where you have come from, but equally you should push yourself to the next thing, whether that be learning, fitness or health.

Wish me luck for this week.

Thanks for reading
Holly :) x

3 comments:

  1. I love your honesty.
    You have a feel for your difficulties so its not going to be hard to help you see them more clearly.
    You know when you are stressed and that's a big plus. Drinking is soo important as you have realised and gorging to make up a lack of measured intake is also bad. You knowing this makes explaining why easier.

    Everything you are saying in your blog is insightful and makes opening a door for you so much easier for me.

    So here is the door.

    You are a machine. I'm not just blowing smoke when I say that and I'm confident its how you have learned to see yourself.

    Every machine has a purpose and you are no exception. Your purpose is .....you can fill that with so many things I'm sure but for me your body has one primary purpose and that is to live on Earth.

    As you have identified we need breathing space, to find Water and Food, to feel useful and loved All the above contribute to success in the most difficult trick of all... Managing GRAVITY.

    This is the secret that our body, usually very efficiently, hides from us and nobody seems to remember when you ask why you feel stressed etc. We live on a planet that is constantly puling us down towards it.

    Your body is therefore primarialy a balance machine.

    Putting in too much of one thing or too little of another is going to push you off balance. You have to be ready to give yourself time to get back on balance before you push yourself harder and more off balance. Feel the balance to know when you can challenge yourself to do more. Don't let the feeling of being off balance scare you into panic measures as this will push your balance further from the ideal. Sleep is the magic that allows our daily challenges to become built into our balance. When you drag yourself up in the morning before you feel refreshed you start in deficit and the foundation of your day is going to be shaky.

    Feel the force.

    your breath is your first balance control then fluids then tissue balance/tension. 1. Air 2. Water 3. Challenge/Sleep. If you deny your body the first, (eg. period of stress) it turns to the second, (eg. frequent urination) then the third. So when you reduce your fluid intake too much and have periods of work stress on top you will have to use fat(weight) to maintain the balance..

    I hope that helps you to understand what you have so brilliantly spotted for yourself and recorded in your blog.

    Let your body wind down naturally at night and you will sleep. Try to cram sleep into a short gap between night time revelry and the next days work and you are heading for disaster.

    Sleep comes when you hit a balance where your body is in equilibrium and your consciousness can let go. Its like finding the gateway to a path back to balance. The path is laid by your daily challenges but only by finding the gateway to it can we rest. If you are struggling to hold yourself still.. searching for the gateway, you will not be able to sleep

    challenge is good, overbalancing and falling in a heap is bad. Keep on blogging I think you are doing a great job.

    Greg

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Greg, it's great to hear I'm hitting the right Mark with my blog and it having the desired impact.
      Holly

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