“You have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile.” – Brian Tracy
Losing fat and changing your physique is a slow process. It takes thousands of tiny decisions that don’t seem like they amount to much and hours of dedicated exercise to sculpt a body you dream of. Even if you are simply losing some weight to get healthy, you STILL have to work hard. Losing fat is just that way.
Every day you are typically faced with a minimum of six eating decisions and one exercise decision. This is how you start the day. You make all of these choices before walking out the door as you pull together what you will eat and pack your gym bag or decide to pop in your DVD. Now comes the next twenty three and half hours! You have to face decisions of going out for a spontaneous lunch, picking at the snack table at the PTA meeting, nibbling on jr’s mac and cheese, or having drinks with the BF after work instead of exercising because her latest boyfried is another dud.
Good gracious! We make so many decisions that define our journey. Always keep your goals in front of you and understand that every decision you make will either move you one more step towards that goal or one step away from that goal. It’s the cumalative effect of all these small efforts to work towards your goal that leads to a sexy, scultped, healthy body.
In my own journey, I was constantly faced with challenges: taking care of someone dying, having a baby, learning how to eat right because I had never done that before, dragging myself to the gym when I hated exercise. What lead to my end result of being Phit-N-Phat was all the not so glamorous decisions. Sure running 1/2 marathons and doing triathlons helped me, but it was all the times I enjoyed a protein shake and a banana after a three hour ride versus pizza and ice cream that got me here.
You have to be patient and live your life like your goal is just out of reach. If you only five pounds to lose out of 100 you would be busting tail at the gym and strong in your food choices. You would have a life setup to support that fat loss. Now, if you have 95lbs of 100 lbs to lose you have to do the same thing. You have to bust tail in your exercise, you have to make strong food choices, and you have to start setting up your life like you are at goal.
In the end, your journey to fat loss is about learning how to dream big and then make little decisions day in and day out to support that big dream. Always stop and think before you do anything and ask yourself this…
Will I be happy with this food/exercise decision thirty minutes after it’s over? Learn to live outside the moment of each food and exercise decision.
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Daily Exercise Journal: Today is a cardio only day. The only body part I have left this week is shoulders and my upper body is still pretty sore from the other workouts. Since the shoulders stimulate those muscles so much I am going to take the cardio day today for an extra night of good repair sleep. I will be doing Rump Buster from my Work Your Butt Off book (order info to the right 
), and then I will do the Beginner Walk/Run Challenge from the book with semi-sprints for the run.
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Daily Food Journal: Today I will be out and about most of the day so I’m packing the cooler down for my travels.
B – oatmeal, Fage, 1/2 scoop protein powder
S – watermelon and protein shake 110 cal version
L – SBD Pizza
S – Energy Bar 170 cals
D – Mahi Mahi w/ EVOO and greek seasoning, green salad, brown rice
S – Fage and pro powder
Sometimes I have to really keep my eye on the big picture to keep making good small decisions. I think that keeping your goal constantly in front of you is one of the best ways to make the right decisions each day. Also not getting too down on yourself if you slip up from time to time.
Comment by Gain Muscle — June 21, 2007 @ 9:44 am