We leave for Southeast Asia in less than 50 days! Baby Jesus. With that, comes a myriad of items to buy and things to do. I need a lightweight pair of flowy pants or capris to beat the heat that surely will not be available for my size and frame in Southeast Asia.
“No worry. We have bigger sizes for you in back.” – sweet gal in Cambodia
Oh I didn’t tell you that story? I’ll save it for another post.
I got a nice wake up call last weekend when I tried on a few of my reserve dresses for a wedding we’re going to this weekend. What? You don’t have reserve dresses? Guess that’s the benefit of going to 27 weddings.
I fit into the 3 I tried on.
Sort of like my large ginger cat fits into the small-dog Christmas sweater we got for him but it’s so tight he eventually just waves the white flag and lays on the floor, immobile.
I even made the hubster zip up one of the dresses while I held onto the bed yelling, “Ready? GO!” <cue sucking in>Â It’s cool. Breathing is for suckas.
Eventually I settled on the blue dress. It fits well and I wore it just last year for our anniversary. Plus, I can breathe. Bonus.
It was a nice reality check.
We’ve been busy with guests, trips and overall busting our asses working this past month. Which means my normal routine of grocery shopping and working out didn’t well…work out. I still worked out this past month, just not as much. I still packed my lunch this past month, just got distracted by offers to eat out with coworkers.
Damn the man, the Mexican food in Fort Lauderdale is something I can’t turn down.
And the tight feeling in those dresses proved it.
I need to feel comfortable while we’re traveling and right now, I don’t. I’m not looking for a quick weight loss solution. I don’t expect to go down sizes or lose massive amounts of weight. I just want to be a bit firmer, the best version of me I can be at this time. My body responds really well when I lift weights at the gym.
Secretly, I should have been a Swedish wrestler. That’s what everyone in Southeast Asia thought I was anyway.
So, here’s my game plan.
Operation Get My Shit Together, engage.
Gym 3x a week.
- Strength train: arms, legs, abs
- Cardio: walking, as my achilles lets me (see below)
I stupidly (stupidstupidstupid) re-injured my Achilles running on the beach during Easter last month. I pushed it too hard and the days and weeks afterwards it was screaming at me. I couldn’t even do a HIIT workout on the treadmill, which is only 20 mins, without it hurting the next day.
So I took a break from running to let it heal. But I need to strength train, specifically my calves, in order to help support my achilles. This is something that really helped last time it started acting up.
This is so incredibly doable. Going to the gym most likely needs to be in the morning because as you can see, my days are pretty much filled to the brim and the last thing I have energy for at the end of a day is to hit the gym.
I usually start off thinking that to get back on track after a month off, that I need to be at the gym or working out 5x a week.
NOT TRUE!
Obviously nutrition is 90% of the equation and I’ll reinstate my plan to bring lunch to work 4 days a week and eat out 1Â day. I tend pack healthy, low-carb, whole-food lunches. I won’t put anymore silly stipulations on it other than that. We do really well balancing eating in and going out at home.
So there it is. I say this is “short-term” because we have less than 50 days until our trip. Obviously these are lifestyle habits that I typically employ.
I can’t beat myself up about this past month, it gets me nowhere and starts a vicious cycle of negative self-talk that usually makes me hungry. Crazy, right?
How do you get back on track after being off for a few weeks or months or years? (Hey—no judging here!)