the moment you give up

For the most part, I can trace times that I give up to one moment. I'm not talking about giving up big goals, but giving up on smaller goals like tracking calories for a day or getting a good calorie burn during a workout. For example, yesterday morning I started off on the right foot - a 6:35 CXWORX class at my gym. Once I got to work, a student came to visit around lunch time, causing me to miss my 12:10 yoga class at work. Not a big deal, I just figured I'd take a day off from yoga and be back at it on Wednesday. I then headed to Jazzercise (where I work part time to barter my membership) and the center owner was using the computer, causing me not to be able to do my Class Managing duties. I jumped out on the floor when class started, but when she left, I got back on the computer to enter the customers and felt my heart rate returning down to normal. It was at that moment that I made the decision I wasn't going to get a good calorie burn in during Jazzercise and I gave up on the rest of the evening.

I had been tracking calories all day, but stopped - my calorie burn wasn't going to be what I had hoped, so family dinner with my roommates was going to put me over my intake goal, so why keep track? I snacked on pretzels on the way home, ate 2 servings of spaghetti (made by my roommate - the sauce was tasteless so there was no reason to keep eating) and ate Almond Dream ice cream straight from the container even though I don't really like it too much.

All of that just because I felt my heart rate dropping as I took 3 minutes away from the dance floor during Jazzercise. In that moment I made the decision to give up, and the rest of the evening went downhill. I'm trying not to judge this behavior but just sit with it and notice when I do it again so that I can try to stop it.

Today, I was having a less than stellar run (running outside in fresh snow is HARD!) and I kept wanting to walk - I was running close to a 12 minute pace anyway, so what was the point? I pushed harder and although I never turned a corner and felt better, I got 3 miles in. And sometimes that's the best you can do - just log the miles.