I think a lot of us know that this is a marathon and not a sprint but I think sometimes the number of "I lost 149lbs" posts can maybe obscure some of the day to day realities of the majority of us who are on our weight loss path. i.e we read posts about huge weight losses and, not infrequently, some very regimented approaches that work for that person but which, imho, are likely not going to be the norm for most of us.
So I thought I would share my workout tale for today and hope somebody finds it useful.
I've been working out 7-8 times a week for the last 9 weeks. I live alone, the pandemic has left me with huge swaths of time and it's really hard to kill massive amounts of time by yourself day after day. Luckily I bought a flat bench and some dumbbells pre pandemic (I was planning on going to Japan -I canceled- and was hyper focused on that area of the world and so was very virus aware in Feb and was worried I'd lose progress if the virus came here and so bought them...excellent call by me) so I can do a basic workout at home and I do 25 flight stair climbs (now with 24lbs on my back) for cardio (the bike I ordered is hopefully arriving this month so I can add that to the routine) and to train for my, I hope, Everest Base Camp hike in November of next year.
In short, I am crazy motivated.
Today was shoulders/bicep/tricep/squats and abs. My first shoulder set was good, 2nd was good, 3rd the wheels came off. My 2nd shoulder exercise was terrible. Three more crappy sets. I got ready to do biceps and stood there and thought "I don't want to do this". Like my brain just completely shut off.
I sat on the bench and thought about fighting through it. Do the volume, weigh in tomorrow, start a fresh week with a stair climb and go from there. And I just couldn't do it. So I called it a day, had a shower, and decided that tomorrow is going to be a couch day. No walks, no exercise, no stair climbs, just a glorious day of resting my aching body. Monday, which normally is chest/back, is going to be a stair climb instead to give my muscles 2 full days off.
My point is this. The body needs days off. If you exercise daily then fabulous. If you never go above your calorie goal then fabulous. I am 1000% not saying that tomorrow I am eating Doritos and lord knows what else. I may have a 2000 calorie day (my normal goal is 1700) and I am not going to move more than 10 feet all day.
And that's ok. Being in "neutral" for a day isn't the same as being in reverse. And, being stronger through rest on Tuesday means a better perfomance when I do chest/back.
Don't feel guilty if you need a day in neutral. Listen to your body. Mine was telling me it needs to veg. If it tells me it needs to veg on Tuesday though, that's when I slap some sense into it and lift some weights :)
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