Smash the zone

Oh my what a weekend. I experienced quite a bit of success.  No measurable success, but definitely some events both in my eating and in my exercise that brought me peace, clarity and motivation.

First of all,  Happy Monday!   How did that sound?   Did I sound sufficiently positive?  Because when I woke up, the first thought was, why can’t it still be the weekend???    It wasn’t until my shower that I realized that it has been well over a year and a half since I’ve had a vacation.  Yeah, I’ve had a day off here and there, but a real vacation? Away from work and a sufficient time to recharge?  It’s been at least a year and half!   I didnt use my vacation at the bank last year...I knew I was switching jobs, and I chose to cash those days in for an extra paycheck. The money helped make the job switch with differing pay periods  a much easier transition.  But right now I’m second guessing that decision.   The good thing?  We are planning a vacation week!!  The bad thing?  We are talking October! 

This week my eating was pretty good. There was the night that I consciously made an effort to not eat a sweet treat. I actually didn’t missed it and did really good. That is my eating victory!  We were talking about the sweet treats, and we are in agreement that on weekdays that we will not be eating the sweet treats, that will be a weekend indulgence. So Thursday or Friday night I will be in the kitchen making and baking something fun. This will  actually work out well, because we are typically more active during the weekends so the extra calories will be burnt!  This is a good change for us. I did tell him that this was going to be a rough week going without any sweets in the evening… The sweet/sugar addiction is going to be screaming to be fed. I know we can do it and get past it though.

On Sunday it was rainy, but that was OK because we had my nephew’s birthday lunch to go to and we had to stop by Jason‘s parents for a quick visit also. We did hit up a geocache and enjoyed seeing this turtle that  We suspect was laying eggs.

We Got a nice bike ride in on Saturday. We saw some great big turtles sunning themselves.

And the deer were out drinking water and showing off their beauty for us.

During the ride, my legs felt strong.  That is how I know that the lunch and break walks  are doing me good. But, while getting out to exercise and ride my bike is a good thing, it is not the victory that I alluded to earlier. My victory came in the revelation that I had while I was riding and the fact that I enacted upon it. I have talked in the past about upgrading my bike this summer. There are certain aspects of mountain bike/trail riding that I will have to learn once I get my new bike. So I started to think about what I can do to be ready for this new bike. What skills can I learn? What aspects of riding do I need to work on to better myself. I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately. The conclusion that I came to was pretty much endurance endurance endurance. Basically get on the bike and ride. I need my legs to be strong as all get out so that when I get the bike I am ready to learn new skills. Yeah, there are a few little things that I can work on in the meantime, like handling the bike, a new cool way to mount my bike and other little things like that. But endurance is what I need. So we were out this weekend and I was riding putting miles on my legs and I started thinking about the endurance. Trail riding requires a lot of time out of the saddle. Sometimes it’s climbing and sometimes it is just easier for bike handling. (Yes I’ve been watching a lot of mountain bike videos with Jason.) Riding with endurance is important, but I need to get also get used to riding out of my saddle. I admittedly am a cruiser. I like to sit down on my bike and just cruise down the canal towpath. On the canal you don’t need to stand up, so I don’t. But on Saturday, I realized that I need to push myself and get out of the saddle.  It might be uncomfortable. It might hurt. I might not like it… At first. But I realized that if I want to improve, I need to push myself out of my comfort zone. Guess what? I didn’t stand the whole ride. But I started every half-mile or so I would stand up and do 10-15 rotations on my feet. Boy did my arthritis kicking in! Surprisingly my muscles were fine. And each time I did it I pushed myself for a couple extra rotation.  I was out of my comfort zone, but I know I was improving my body and my fitness.

And that my friend was my revelation. The greatest results come when we push ourselves out of our comfort zone. The comfort zone might be eating a dessert every night, and pushing yourself is breaking that habit. The comfort zone might be sitting in the saddle and peddling your bike and never standing up. The comfort zone might be sitting back in a state of obesity and never trying to better yourself. We all have comfort zone, but if we long for change and reformation, we have to smash those comfort zones and push ourselves further.   I took steps to smash the comfort zone..thatsounds like a pretty good victory to me…