No, I’m not asking if you are planning a family camping trip this weekend! 🙂
I’m talking about whether you should be camping out where you are in your workout journey.
You’re tooling along, doing great with your workouts; consistency is going well. Then you hit–
Just as in a road trip, detours can be frustrating. Taking longer to get to your destination, driving slowly through construction, going waaayyyyy off the beaten path, perhaps not as scenic…even GoogleMaps or Mapquest might not be of much help! (We recently found this out when we needed a quick detour around a reservoir when a main road bridge was out. There are no quick detours around reservoirs!)
Lots of little jogs left, then right, then oops! Just passed my turn on that almost-hidden country road. Okay, back up…turn left again…..you know how it goes!
The same thing happens in our journey to our “destination” or goal in losing inches/weight/sizes. It’s even more maddening to run into a detour when you have a time crunch! (Like our recent find-an-alternative-way-around-the-reservoir—we were heading to an orthodontist appointment.)
You wanted to lose 2 sizes for your wedding. Or you wanted to tone up a bit so you could wear short sleeves without feeling too self-conscious this summer. Perhaps you were hoping to lose 4 sizes in 6 months to fit into a dream outfit for a special occasion.
Then comes the detour….
It could be any kind of crisis that interrupts your workout routine or caused you to pig out after a time of doing so well with your eating plan. Whether it’s a bump in the road of health, moving across the country, starting a new job, loss of a loved one, or even happy stresses such as a wedding or new baby–all have one thing in common:
They tend to derail our nicely laid plans to our destination!
The problem comes when we forget this is a detour. A detour, not a camping spot! Worse yet, we forget it’s not a place to buy real estate and build a house!
Just like twists and turns, bumpy roads and frustrations in a road trip detour, we can have a bumpy ride with inch loss. Our bodies are not static and stationary but very much a living, breathing organism that ebbs and flows and can’t just be forced into submission to your plans.
So what do you do? You might need to follow the detour, which sometimes takes you way out of the way but will get you back on the road eventually. Or you might need to forge a new way, yet constantly check that you are heading in the right direction–especially with many twists and turns and hidden road signs! You might actually get back on track quicker even though at first it seemed it might take longer.
We don’t really know, sometimes, where exactly this journey to The Land of Smaller Sizes will take us. But I know from experience that if you regroup and don’t set up camp at the detour, and keep moving, you will get back on track. Yes, even if you have to back up because you missed a turn or two! 😉
And before long, you will breathe a sigh of relief because you will see…..
Remember–it’s only a detour, not your destination! So don’t set up camp there and don’t buy a house, because you are just passing through!
