Failure Isn’t An Option – Or Is It?

So what do you do when you start a fitness blog with two other people and then you spectacularly fail to get fit or lose the fat?

Picture: fireflythegreat

We’re eight weeks in with the Wednesday Weigh-In and by my reckoning I should be in the region of 16 lbs down. That’s half the weight I wanted to lose at a modest rate 2lbs a week.

O – M – G !!!

What’s wrong with me?

Why have I lost a grand total of 1lb in EIGHT weeks?

That’s pitiful by anyone’s standards even taking Christmas into account.

The very best I can say about my circumstances is that I’ve maintained…. but then that’s not quite accurate. It’s more accurate to say that I’ve lost weight… and now I’m putting it back on again.

The BEST I can say is that I haven’t exceeded my starting weight. And I’m clinging on to that fact for dear life.

Clearly something isn’t clicking.

I don’t think any of what I’ve written to date at BlogToFit is outrageous nonsense or even dramatically flawed. I think my basic plan to get fit is sound.

So what’s the deal?

Well… I think I’m NORMAL.

Seriously, I think that I’m just the same as everyone else who’s trying to lose weight or get fit.

I have the same busy lifestyle where I’m trying to fit a quart into a pint pot – constantly juggling conflicting priorities and making a hash of it.

Prior to starting my own blog Teach My Children Well – which was intended to track my self improvement – I spent a lot of time reading blogs like Zen Habits, Scott H Young, Steve Pavlina and many more like them and the vast majority of them seem to advocate simplifying our lives and concentrating only on one major goal at a time for a month at a time (as per the links).

I’ve always loved that idea but I’ve never been able to do it. My life is just too full of other things.

There are too many urgent demands that I need to be dealing with right now. Real issues in my life that will come to a head within the next six weeks like the looming threat of a return to work and an overwhelming desire to avoid that by finding a new way to make a living, not to mention the fact that I have a four children to marshal around, along with all the attendant duties of a stay at home parent – I don’t feel I can afford to put any of those things off for 30 days so that I can get on top of the weight loss.

What I’m going through now is exactly why I came to the web. I was looking for the solution to my general inability to get things done. I felt overwhelmed all the time, which led to procrastination, which led to nothing getting achieved.

I’ve always kept an open agenda, because I’ve convinced myself that I don’t want to live my life by an appointments diary. Which is nice for doing spontaneous things, going where my fancy takes me and getting into the moment, but it gets nothing achieved.

Vast swathes of time pass and I look back and wonder how, with all that time, I managed to achieve so little.

I know I need to do less. I know I need to cut so many more things out of my life in order to get the important things done, which is why I chose to have only four priorities.

I’m cautious about following another hair brained scheme to trick myself into losing weight but if I don’t do something, in two months time, I’ll still be nearly 200lbs and I’ll still be without an income and forced to return to work and both of those scenarios are about as far away from my major goals as it’s possible for me to be.

I strongly suspect my personal organisation is the root cause of my problems. The open agenda approach means I’m doing what I feel like doing, not what I really need to be doing.

Are you organised? Does this help with your fitness or weight loss goals?

Or am I totally missing the point? Should I just pull myself together and get on with it?

Should I put fitness on hold indefinitely until I’ve dealt with my top three priorities.

What would you do?

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Wednesday Weigh In Jan. 14, 2009

Blog To Fit is now on Twitter!

You can now follow us on Twitter.

Tara and the two Dave’s are all sharing a Twitter account for BlogToFit. So if you enjoy our posts here, you’ll likely get a zillion times the content (and one or two funny one liners) over at Twitter given the fact that some of us (cough, Fowler!, cough) are ADDICTED to it!

Even though we share an account, you’ll know who is tweeting by their initials at the end of the tweet.

So, how did the BlogToFitters do this week? Read on below!

Tara Cain

So I’ve been really really busy this week. But I have clocked up 10,000 steps on my pedometer every day too by going for walks into town when I could just easily pick up the phone and do what needs doing or jump in the car.
It’s C O L D here in England at the moment too, and W E T, but it really hasn’t put me off and only serves to invigorate me.

The only trouble is – and here’s the kicker – more exercise = bigger appetite and I’m fighting the urge to stuff my face with hot toast and crumpets the minute I walk in the door.

I know, however, that I am heading in the right direction. I now have to wear a belt on my work trousers to stop me having to hitch them up every 5 minutes and frightening everyone to death with a workman’s bum.
As you’ll see from my stats, my weight hasn’t moved much, but but but BUT I feel much much better and I KNOW I’m heading in the right direction.

The stats: Tara Cain

• Starting weight Wed. Nov.19: 168 lbs.
• Goal weight: 140 lbs.
• Weight last week: 165 lbs.
• Weight today: 164lbs
• Amount lost this week: 1 lb

David Fowler

The trouble when you make diet and fitness forth in your list of priorities is that it sometimes doesn’t get a look in. Especially if you have a cold that just won’t budge, accompanied by an “all or nothing” mentality. Further complicate the issue with some poor planning and it’s a recipe for not getting fit and not losing weight.

I don’t regret making fitness my forth priority – as the things I have at 1-3 are crucially important to me at the moment – but I do regret allowing my flawed Completer Finisher personality with an all or nothing approach mentality – to stop me from making some progress… even a little progress.

I’ve put on a pound in weight and a little around the middle. I’m going in the wrong direction. I’m not panicking because I haven’t fallen off the wagon or abandoned my goals as such, but something is awry here and I want to figure out what. I’ll give it some more thought before my post tomorrow.

The stats: David Fowler

Starting weight Wed. Nov.19: 200 lbs.
Goal weight 173 lbs.

Format: Start / Last Week / This Week

• Weight: 200 / 198 / 199
• Amount lost this week: GAINED 1 lb
• Hips: 40 / 39.75 / 39.75
• Waist: 38.5 / 38.25 / 38.5
• Belly: 40.25 / 40 / 40.25
• Chest: 41.5 / 41 / 41

(Weight is in lbs and measurements in inches)

David Wright

Geesh, why is it everytime someone in the house gets better, someone else gets sick? This week was my son and me, who is still recovering. I didn’t get out nearly enough and the stats below are about what I expected.

This week I must get more sleep and MORE exercise!

The stats: David Wright

• Starting weight Wed. Nov.19: 350 lbs.
• Goal weight: 250 lbs.
• Weight last week: 345 lbs.
• Weight today: 345 lbs.
• Amount lost this week: 0 lbs.

Now it’s your turn. Share your success (or setback) story with us.

If you’d like to post a Wednesday Weigh-In post on your blog and help spread the word of our goals, please do so. Get all the info on how you can participate right here.

See you downstairs in the comments – and let’s all show our support and visit anyone taking part.

Want a bit of humor and motivation delivered via email every weekday? Subscribe to get each BlogToFit post delivered for free! Email not your thing? That’s okay, you can also subscribe via RSS – like all the cool kids do. It’s also free. Unless you really WANT to pay us.

Copyright 2009 BlogToFit.com. If you are reading this on any site other than BlogToFit.com or your personal feedreader or email, you may be viewing it on a site which steals content. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t trust any site which steals content.

Dave Fowler’s Daily Update Number 7

Tuesday 9th December 2008

I’m glad I don’t have to run today because I’ve got a twinge in my left hip/ass. I hope it goes away! I’ll be doing today’s body weight exercises mid morning and I’ll get back to the running tomorrow (as scheduled).

Picture: barbequeburger

Since last Wednesday’s weigh-in my weight has been frustratingly static around 197 (my official weigh-in weight) and this is why weighing daily can be so frustrating.

I still believe weighing daily is the best option for me because it reveals the trend. The trend is still down, but it’s too slow.

The last time I tried this I was dropping 2lbs each week without fail and at the moment I’m on track for dropping 1lb per week.

DC Urban Dad disclosed yesterday that he’s hit the wall. It’s tough when that happens (and I wish you luck DCUD) but for me, I hope this is just an issue of adjustment.

There’s enough data to tell me that my calorie intake is too high so I’m dropping it down for a while.

Taking the calorie estimation route instead of the calorie counting route isn’t precise but then it doesn’t need to be. As long as I’m somewhere in the region I can make some very quick adjustments, track for another twoweeksand see where I am.

Yesterday I weighed 197.4 – and increase of 0.4 from Wednesday.
Today I weigh 196.4.

It’s unlikely I dropped a pound of fat over 24hours – as that represents a 3500 calorie deficit which again goes to show how the scale can play tricks.

I’ll settle for a one pound loss again this Wednesday, but thereafter I want to be nearer the original target of 2lbs per week.

I’ve decided to share a little more information in my daily updates, like my daily weight figures. And starting tomorrow I’ll breakdown my food intake to show you just how relaxed I am about my food choices. Real life. Real food.

NOTE: We have another post for you today at Blog To Fit, just follow the link to a picture of Tara Cain’s crap

Want a bit of humor and motivation delivered via email every weekday? Subscribe to get each BlogToFit post delivered for free! Email not your thing? That’s okay, you can also subscribe via RSS – like all the cool kids do. It’s also free. Unless you really WANT to pay us.

Do you weigh the same as Jay Leno’s head?

I don’t know about you, but my bathroom scales are boring.

I’m not even a big fan of scales. I mean for starters they lie. And secondly they should recognise that I’m having a ‘down’ day and not tell me I’ve put on 2lb just by eating that one square of chocolate I found down the back of the sofa where the children usually sit.

I’m too cheap to splash out and buy one of those fancy pants ones you see that are all chrome and glass and tell you your weight, your BMI, your daily calorie intake and what the contents of your fridge are in alphabetical order.

But these scales, these scales I would be prepared to fork out my hard-earned cash on.
On these scales you get to compare your weight with celebrities. And being shallow and a bit of a celeb watcher, I find that just darling!
But these aren’t just any old celebs. Oh no, these are proper top of the class AA List celebs.
So forget boring old numbers, now you can find out if you are the same weight as say Fozzie Bear or the Karate Kid or Judge Judy.
Not so sure about ‘half a John Candy’ or ‘Jay Leno’s Head’ and if I ever stood on there and the needle stopped on Mr Ed, I’d throw them out the window.

Anyway, if like me you find scales a bit depressing and tend to use them to step on to reach the top shelf, try these things of beauty.

NOTE: There is another fabulous and a lot more sensible post today, from David Wright on, well it’s so good just go read it here.