I remembered that if I want to go to bed at 9pm, then I have to follow through on one certain habit. Put down the cell phone. I will ignore texts/calls/facebook after 9pm. I've even been watching Netflix on my cellphone! Got to stop that. Not only does that keep me up later, but the lights from the phone prevent the natural flow of sleep from happening.
I remembered this because last night, I thought I would be asleep by 6pm, and I was very happy about that. Instead, I stayed up until 11:16pm. That seems to be my magic number. I realize I am REALLY gonna screw up my day if I stay up any later. I've got to do things differently.
Speaking of doing things differently, I had an amazing day today!
I woke up at 7:36am feeling refreshed. I wasted a bunch of time on facebook because I knew that today was the day I said I would start going to Kerry's yoga on Saturday in order to stay focused on my goals. I wanted out. So I wasted time.
I came downstairs at 8am to have my coffee and remembered that I had declared I would give up the creamer today. TO-DAY. I immediately regretted that declaration. I started my coffee, and held the bottle of French Vanilla Coffeemate in my hand (this was the start of a bad idea). I started to bargain with myself. Just A DROP, I thought. Just a tiny bit. I'll forgo the creamer tomorrow. I read the ingredients label. No surprises. 2nd ingredient is sugar, and then lots of things that I only remember parts of, such as super-dextrose, and under-hydrolyzed or something. Maltodextrin? Is that a thing? Anyway, I know that entertaining that thought is venturing down the path of going back on my word. I think the moment I realized I had made the mistake of even considering it was the moment that I put the creamer down. I thought, "This is not so hard. Put the coffee to your lips and drink. Stop being a wimp about it." And what do you know? It was smooth and delicious, not bitter or yucky like I had imagined!
At that point it was probably just after 8am and I realized, I am NOT opting out of yoga. I had already started making excuses for myself, "I'm a little bit sick." Which is true, I am a little bit sick, but I'm at the tail end of it, and the fact of the matter is, I wasn't going to get anyone else sick, AND it wasn't going to interfere with my ability to do yoga. What's more, I'm pretty confident hot yoga boosts your immune system, so...no good reason to skip. And that was it. Very little internal argument. I started my car, prepared my glutamine and remembered...GET THERE EARLY! The last time I went, I got there just at 8:30am, and I don't remember if the class had started or not, but it looked full to me. I didn't want to disrupt anyone, so I turned around and left. But, that experience brought lots of feelings of shame for me. I mean, I shamed myself for some reason. My inner critic had a field day with it. I was NOT going to let that happen again. So, I think I got there at 8:20am and there was already a line out the door. I expected that with New Year's and all. I saw one open spot left and I took it. I didn't get here just to miss out!
But the most amazing thing happened. As I was feeling sorry for the people who would miss out because they got there too late, I watched Kerry, the instructor MAKE ROOM for people. I mean, when I showed up the last time, my inner critic said things like, "Great, now there's not enough room for you! Don't you respect the class enough to get here early? Everybody else managed to get here early...blah blah blah." And, here, the instructor's approach is to MAKE ROOM for people she knew were coming. I was totally blown away. Maybe I'm not making myself clear here. Our mats were already about two inches away from every other mat near us. Ahead and behind, and to each side. A person next to me said jovially, "Hey, we almost have enough people that we could just make the floor one big yoga mat!" I didn't BELIEVE there was more room. And yet, the instructor KNEW there was and wanted to use it to accommodate those folks. And, in doing this for other people, I realized, she would have done it for me. What I really discovered in this moment is that my inner critic is a LIAR. The last time I came, I didn't believe I DESERVED someone to make room. For me. But they will. Happily. And that really opened my eyes to how much love and acceptance there is for me. :)
I learned so much in yoga today about going to that difficult place. I think the lesson in yoga is to always step outside of your comfort zone, and I needed a refresher. I definitely practiced stepping out of my comfort zone this week, and next week, I will build on that. I am committed to yoga every Saturday from now on. I saw a woman, another instructor whose classes I have never taken because it scares me, take the dancer pose...
Anyway, I learned all kinds of things about myself in yoga today. Then I came home and did some writing, and worked on my to-do list, took a 2 hour nap. Got my kitchen a tiny bit more organized, and finally asked myself what my goals were. Yes, I want to see my belly muscles, yes, I want to get down to 15% body fat, but what is my time frame? How will I know if I reach that goal? And that was when I finally committed to COMPETING in a figure competition in October of this year. If you can see my abs when you're sitting in the audience at a competition, I would say that I've achieved the "see my belly muscles" goal beyond the shadow of a doubt. So I'm doing the 12 week transformation with an end goal that it's going to shed fat to get me ready for that competition later in the year.
Tomorrow, I'm going to practice a phase 3 workout from Jamie Eason's LiveFit Trainer because I'm afraid of it, and I want to get familiar with it before I actually have to do it. I'm going to do my food prep, have my cheat meal, take my "before" pictures, and write out a vision of where I want to be in five years.
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