For the first time in four days, I’ll be going to the gym. I honestly cannot wait. I’m not going to injure myself, but I am planning to spend a great deal of time at the gym. I’m going to really focus on my running and I’m going to get some laps in the pool.
The weather is getting really nice here, so I’m almost ready to move outside for my daily runs. In fact, I plan to get up early Monday morning and hit the track.
I can’t be certain, but I think that my stall might be over. I feel much better than I did yesterday, and I’ll know for sure when I weigh in Monday. Saturday and Sunday, I’m really going to focus on my diet, and I’m going to totally avoid anything “junky”.
I know you’ve been stuck for a while and these recommendations may already have been made, but I think you should consider:
1. Variation – Your body will eventually adapt to your workouts, so you need to change it up to force adaptation. If you are drawing a blank, why not solicit training ideas from your readers so you can have a menu of workouts to draw from when you plateau?
2. Overtraining – You may be overtrained. If so, take a week off and do absolutely no exercise. Let your body rest, recover and repair.
3. Alter Your Focus – Are you really using the scale as a standard of measurement? It’s probably the least informative and most frustrating method. Weigh yourself. Good, now go and drink a bottle of water and weigh yourself again. If your scale is accurate (and most aren’t) you should weigh more after the water. But are you fatter? NO. Why not get away from the scale for a while? If you absolutely need to measure something, measure body composition. Or, even better, change your focus to performance and/or health standards or measurements. In other words, spend some time trying to accomplish new performance records: Run a faster mile, increase your maximum number of pushups and pullups by 25%, sustain a longer plank, go up a rank in martial arts, swim a faster 100 meters, etc, etc.. If you refocus on performance and do the necessary training and eating to facilitate performance improvements, it’s likely that as a nice bonus you’ll improve your aesthetics and body composition.
4. Focus on health, not weight.
You’re doing great. But your psyche is pretty muddy. Stop kicking yourself around and allowing your self-regard to be determined by three digits on the bathroom scale.