Day 755: Acknowledge The Good
🖤 Get well soon Tommy ! #teamrivs #RageOn 🖤
Today is day 755 of Nutrisystem. I talk often about all the good in my life today but it wasn't always that way. For years I lived with abuse, financial woes and more. I very often felt like I was running headlong downhill, unable to stop. Life was exhausting and it's the reason I am so grateful for all that I have now, including relative calm. During those years I couldn't control so much in my life and as a result anytime something came along that I could control I tended to go overboard with it. I grabbed hold and hung on for dear life. Today I'm conscious of that tendency and I do my best to keep it in check. I was thinking about it this morning as I played a game on my phone before work. I wrote about competition a few weeks back and it pertained to this game. I play it just for fun and without realizing it I rose through the ranks and achieved MVP status within the group I was playing with. It was nothing I was actively pursuing and it didn't change how I played the game. I just happened to be in a group with few active players. It was just for fun and an alternative to tv or eating ! So imagine my surprise when a Facebook acquaintance popped up in the group and made no secret of the fact they intended to unseat me. It turned the game into a competition rather than the relaxing and fun distraction I had enjoyed for the past 3 months. At first I worked hard at keeping my MVP status but then I stopped and thought about what I was doing. The game was no longer fun. It was about holding on to something I hadn't actively pursued in the first place. I was consumed with keeping that little MVP badge. It was all I thought about. I wasn't going to let someone take that away ! It was mine ! In the end, this is not who I want to be and I didn't like the way it made me feel. So I finally unfriended & blocked that individual (sorry, not sorry) and changed the group of people I play the game with. I had to unfriend & change groups to prevent this individual from following me within the game. I don't need that drama in my life. I'm no longer an MVP but I'm in a group with a higher ranking, more participating players and most importantly ... the game is FUN again ! It's a bunch of people in the same boat rowing together toward a shared goal .. instead of one jerk who wants to be king of the hill and will climb over everyone to get there. I get that this is all about my own perceptions, but I had to remove myself from it in order to tamp down that drive to compete for something so trivial. Some people thrive on competition and I see that in my fitness groups too, but I'm not one of them. I compete with myself and that is enough ! In my eyes there is nothing I have and nothing I do that is worth competing with me for. When you think about it, if you're always in competition will you ever be happy ? Will anything ever be enough ? How much time & energy will you spend chasing things that really don't matter ? Those are the questions I had to ask myself and I didn't like the answers or the way it made me feel. So I'm glad I made the changes I did. Call me a poor sport. Call me a poor loser. Call me lazy. Call me unambitious. In my mind there is a definite difference between ambition and competition, so I don't see a lack of competitive spirit as a negative. It's just not who I am. It doesn't mean I'm not ambitious. I have ambitions and if they pertain to things that mean enough to me, I will work to attain them. Right now I am enough and I have enough and I am happy. I can now play my game for pure enjoyment while someone else celebrates a hollow victory. I hope it was worth it. Until I made the change I didn't realize how much it was affecting me so for me it was completely worth it. It felt so good once it was done !
Breakfast was a 240 calorie cup of apple & cinnamon oatmeal by Powerful Foods. Morning snack was a 120 calorie vanilla shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a 3.8 ounce 220 calorie pepperoni pizza melt and a chef salad. Afternoon snack was 1/2 cup cottage cheese (80 calories) and 2 Alyssa's oatmeal cookies (90 calories). Dinner was a 7.5 ounce 220 calorie chicken fettuccine alfredo over riced cauliflower with roasted veggies. Evening snack was a 2.1 ounce 130 calorie cream filled chocolate cupcake. Total calories for the day are 1100 and I got 80 ounces of water in.
I didn't get up early enough for a morning workout. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact it's not going to happen until winter is over. I just hate to get out of my nice warm bed any sooner than I have to ! Yep, I'm a loser ! My lunchtime workout was in Costa Rica with iFit trainer John Peel and after work was Turks & Caicos with iFit trainer Chris Clark. After dinner was that 4 minute TED talk. I logged 59 minutes, 3.3 miles and 400 calories. I also put in 45 minutes on the Total Gym. My back is still a little stiff but I was able to use my normal treadmill speed & incline (3.1 to 3.7 mph and 4% or 3% incline). I also did all of my usual Total Gym exercises, though I am still being very careful with the one that relies on the back muscles because I felt a little twinge today that I didn't like. That one exercise is definitely harder right now. Fitbit says I did about 12,500 steps.
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