Do you ever find yourself planning your workouts and dietary strategy for a trip that is months away?
I have been guilty of this so many times.
I found myself thinking today about what I will pack for breakfasts when I travel to Cabo in April with a friend. TODAY it’s January 29th! I do not leave for this trip until April 1st!!! I just got back from a trip two days ago!!!! What’s my problem?
This sort of anxious over-planning leads to me obsessing over every detail of my current diet and workouts. I try to forecast where I will be in two or three months….”if I am in this shape; then I will need to do this…..” Goals definitely help me achieve accomplishments in life. Over-planning and over-predicting the future leads to an extreme amount of pressure I place on myself that sucks all the fun out of my journey.
I realized this today as I stopped myself short of hitting the pantry out of anxiety, not hunger, anxiety. Anxiety why? Because I can’t decide if I want to go out to eat Saturday night or cook at home for my loosened up meal for the week? That is insanely stupid! I had to stop myself and get a grip! I sat down and decided to write this blog and realized what REAL issues am I avoiding in the midst of this senseless planning?
– worrying about my mother’s recent health issue update
– worried about my best friend’s ill husband and what will happen to their little girl
– procrastinating on tax work that needs to get done for my business
These are real issues that are truly bothering me. I overplay my fitness strategy to avoid facing what bothers me.
Also, I am scared of the unknown. I like to plan so I know what the future looks like.
My point in writing about this today is that I see many clients walk through my door with the same issue of over control. Most of us are afraid of what will happen to us if we hand over control. The initial stage of one’s fitness journey should absolutely be well planned and thought out. After that; it needs to evolve into a sustainable healthy lifestyle that is best guided through prior education about what your body generally needs and current intuition on what you need now.
Life is not perfect. You cannot plan out every detail. You can have a loose idea of what it will look like but that is the best we can do. Those loose plans are called dreams. Filling in the details is called living. Maintaining a fitness level (once reached) is more about choosing to live a healthy life and rolling with the punches along the way. It is more important that we maintain our composure when life throws us a curveball than packing oatmeal for breakfast for a trip 3 months away.
Why? Life will always be disordered and we ourselves we always be flawed. We are humans not robots. We like order but also rebel against it even if it is us that supplies the order.
If I plan to be absolutely perfect on my diet on my vacation that I should be enjoying then I have set myself up to inevitably break down and ruin my entire over thought plan. (Like binging on cookies I scavenged for in a strange convenience store at 12:30am while my husband is sleeping – true story!). I simply needed a mental break from my over controlled life I had created!
We severely underestimate the power of the human psyche in achieving health and fitness goals. I will be the first to tell someone to suck it up don’t get me wrong, but your entire life existence can’t be one unending grind of sucking it all up.
My “aha” moment today was that I need is to focus my attention on my intention rather than the details. I know how to eat right. I have had dozens of nutrition coaches as well as many years of formal education myself to teach me how to do it. I can plan details for tomorrow but I need to live with intention to make healthy, moderate decisions indefinitely in the future. That will keep me happier, leaner, and free up more time for me to focus on my family, friends, and clients. So when a plane flight gets delayed, friends unexpectedly come to visit we don’t all through caution to the wind and abandon our healthy lifestyle intention. Life is meant to be lived not controlled. They way we live it everyday accumulates into who we are. If we want to be fit and healthy that we must act fit and healthy. That is done one decision at a time.
