Skip to main content

Expectations vs. Reality


Expectation: I've started working out and eating healthy so I'm going to instantly drop 100 lbs of water weight. Right? (I'm exaggerating here. ;) )
Reality: I've started working out and eating healthy so I will *hopefully* lose 1-2 lbs per week.

Expectation: I've been working out for 4 months and have seriously changed my eating habits. Even if I don't go to the gym every day I should still drop some serious inches! Rah!
Reality: I've been working out for 4 months and while my eating habits have seriously changed, that doesn't mean I get some "get out of jail free" card to sit on my butt. Don't go to the gym? Don't lose the inches.

Expectation: Goal weight in 6 months! Wooooo!!
Reality: Goal weight?? What about goal health? Goal waist size? Goal lift number? Screw the goal weight.

Often times my expectations are not very realistic. Case in point, all of the above. I assumed once I changed up my eating habits I would just instantly drop 5-10 lbs of water weight. That wasn't the case because I simultaneously started lifting when I started eating differently. Muscle takes up less space than fat, so my body composition has been changing, but I've only lost 6 lbs in the last 4 months.

I have, however, lost 16.5" since May 1st. So take THAT, unrealistic expectations. 

I had no idea when I started this journey that I'd be losing so many inches. I'd read stories, heard legends, blah blah blah. But I'd never measured myself, so I didn't have a first-hand appreciation of how gratifying it is to wrap a thin band tighter and tighter around a shrinking waist. My priorities have also changed since I started, because this time last year I'd have been devastated that I've only lost ~6 lbs in 4 months. If the average healthy amount to lose is 1-2 lbs per week, then naturally I'm "far behind" in my weight loss efforts.

Buuuut…. I've lost 16.5 inches between my neck, rib cage, waist, hips, thighs, and biceps. So yeah, I haven't lost a ton of actual fat (we're still working on it!), but my body composition is certainly changing.

Let me tell you, once you have the habit of going to the gym on a daily basis, for the love of all that's holy, DON'T STOP GOING TO THE GYM.

Repeat after me: DO. NOT. STOP. GOING. TO. THE. GYM. 

I haven't gone much in the last 2 weeks (maybe thrice?), and today I paid the piper. I can normally do 3 sets of 10 reps of overhead dumbbell presses, and today I had to grunt and strain and try crazy hard to do it. I normally do 40 lb tricep push-downs. Today I was doing 35 lb ones and feeling like a sissy girl. Even my 200 lb v-squat that I was so proud of? Today we did 180.

So while they're still good results, I definitely took a step back since I essentially took a week and a half off. =\

Anywho. That's about it for me. How's everyone else doing? How are your workouts and your food stuffs?

<3
A Redhead

Comments

  1. I hear you, friend. The good news is you're going back and you'll get back to where you left off in no time!! So way to go!! My unrealistic expectations mostly revolve around losing 5 pounds if I eat super clean for one day. Logically I know that won't happen, but I still hope for it. =P

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shame Eating

I found the above image on the interwebs and it always makes me laugh. All.the.time. It's kinda true though, right? IF you've ever had any kind of food addiction then you know the sweet sweet embrace of "one more" handful of kettle corn (ahem), or "one more" piece of bread, or whatever . I was joking with my co-worker that I might as well be shame eating out of the Costco-sized bag of Kettle corn on my counter in the dark, licking the sweet and salty remnants off my fingers. That I can't be trusted alone with it. That I grab a bigger-than-small bowl and PILE it up, lamenting the few rogue pieces that make it to the floor. Another colleague overheard us and said she used to do that with angel food cake. She would sit it on the passenger side and just drive, picking at the fluffy confection. I know a girl who could knock out an entire family size container of Sara Lee pound cake. So friends, those are a few confessions. Using the powers of anonym

Not really proud...

(Redhead's Note: Please forgive anything that's more lame than normal, or anything that sounds weird; I'm on a constant regimen of cough syrup...) I started getting a chest tickle on the 8th, which quickly escalated to a hacking cough, and now 6 days later has my left nostril clogged. I'm sick. Lame sauce, I know. When I'm sick I'm kind of a pathetic being: I get whiny, I'm tired all the time, I'm fairly selfish ("Your car died?? But... But...  I'm sick ....") * - it's not a pretty sight. What else tends to happen is I will eat a lot. I'm not one of those people that gets sick and doesn't eat for 3 days. Oh if only! Nope, I'm that girl that gets sick and will find every last semblance of comfort food, and vacuum it up into my sick mouth hole. Handful of chocolate chips? Don't mind if I do. A small-ish spoon of Nutella? Yes please? 4 lbs of bread? Why don't mind if I do! Thankfully the only real example f

He Likes Big Butts and He Cannot Lie!

Do I have any fellow big booty girls in the audience? Or I suppose big booty brothers? Maybe? Anywho. I've had a rather prodigious posterior for my entire life. I think part of it is that I've always been a fat kid, and part of it is probably genetics. Even when I lost weight in high school, it was still pretty hefty. In fact, I recall walking with a friend of mine and hearing 2 guys behind us talking. "Look at that fat a**", his friend said "where" and the other guy said "the one on the right". I was, of course, the girl on the right. It's a moment that's resonated within me for a long time. That happened in probably 2003 while I was a young 16 year old, and 10 years later it's still a moment that occasionally wraps me up in it's insecure and hateful arms. It didn't help that a year or so later I was in a parking lot with friends, feeling cute in a spaghetti string tank top and jeans, and a complete stranger  drove by