Fail Less

It’s Easter Monday today.  A day that is a holiday if you work for our government but not a holiday if you don’t.  If you are at work though, as I am, this is going to (hopefully) be one of those days that you sort of drift through!

Saturday and Sunday were equally as gorgeous as Friday and we spent as much time outside as we possibly could.  We drank wine on the driveway, barbequed steaks, rode our bicycles (Grace went for her first bicycle stroll on Sunday and did awesome!), rode Ray’s motorcycle some more and went for a couple walks.  Thank God for allergy medication though, we both felt awesome all weekend and then this morning, sans-pill, I feel like she-it!  Will be running to the store next door for some allergy meds as soon as my co-worker arrives this morning!

So anyway, earlier in the week my other co-worker was lamenting her own life and weight issues and smoking habit and proceeded to tell me the following:  “You’re so lucky that you lost all your weight and quit smoking, it must be amazing to have that much will power and never fail at anything!”.  I was equal parts amazed and annoyed by the whole thing.  First of all, “luck” had nothing to do with it.  Second, I don’t actually have more than normal will power and third, what in the blue blazes makes her think that it was my first time trying to lose weight and quit cigarettes?! 

Everyone fails, over and over.  The people who succeed are the ones who make the effort to FAIL LESS!  I failed two days last week when I couldn’t get up and go to the gym like I was supposed to.  I failed on Thursday afternoon when, after having commuted and grocery shopped after work for over 3 hours on an empty stomach, I bought a fist full of bulk bridge mixture and ate it all while sitting in my car before going home.  I failed at the gym on Saturday when I didn’t properly fuel and could only run ¾ of the second mile in mile-row-mile. 

I failed three times in one week.  Someone might even consider the bottle and a half of wine I drank or the French fries I had as a failure to healthy eating.  The thing of it is, as far as I’m concerned, we all fail, all the time.  It’s about trying to balance the failure that we all encounter with doing more things that make you successful.  I ate bridge mix on Thursday.  I rocked the gym on Friday morning and ate clean all day.  I failed the mile-row-mile on Saturday but the success was the 1.75 miles and 1000m row that I did do, and I ate well all day.  I failed Saturday when I drank the bulk of a bottle of wine but the success is that we had an awesome sunshiney evening and a great late dinner.  I failed yesterday when I had French fries with my lunch instead of salad but the success was that we had a light salad for dinner instead of what I’d originally planned.

For anyone to think that I don’t fail or have trouble or miss is ridiculous.  Sometimes it’s hard to see if you’re not looking for it but most people who appear to be successful at something are toiling away at it in the dark hours and for the most part no one ever sees that part.  Rarely is success effortless.  Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest because the idea that I just “decided” one day to become healthy and fit and then was “lucky” enough to have it magically happen irks me because I worked my tail off every day to get here and I work even harder to stay here!

OK, so it’s April 1^st, the start of a new month!  I read a tweet (I think) of Girl Meets Paleo the other day where she commented that she was going to be eating “squeaky clean” for April.  For some reason the whole “squeaky clean” thing resonated with me and I decided that I’m going to give it my best in April also.  In March, with going to the gym very frequently and eating pretty well I made some decent gains…well…..losses….or both.  I gained some muscle and lost some weight although how much of either is unknown since I don’t weigh myself.  But, with a mild to moderate effort in March being pretty successful I thought I would give an even more concerted effort in April knowing that bikini season is coming!.  My definition of “squeaky clean” is much the same as I eat now….but I’m going to make a real dedicated effort to sticking to whole foods.  And yes, I’m sorry, in my book a nice glass of wine is a whole food!  Haha

Also in April I have 15 gym days lined up in the second month of a partner-gym-pact with my co-worker.  Along with that I have another new goal.  HANDSTAND!  I will try and achieve a handstand that lasts long enough for Ray to snap a picture of it for proof.  By the end of April. (I just googled “How to learn a handstand” and the progression on how you can teach this to yourself is going to take longer than a month….so I renege my “by the end of April” and will do it when I can do it.)  Yesterday’s trial run ended with three tries and the last try with me on the floor killing myself laughing.  Granted there was a significant amount of wine fueling the trial but whatever!  Took the sting out of the rugburn I ended up with!  Given that the title of my post is Fail Less, I realize that I will be unlikely to achieve this for awhile but I will give an update in April (with a video?) showing how far I’ve come…and there is no need for a “before” video or pic, just picture me not doing a handstand and you should have a good impression of where I am now.  LOL!

(yesterday I asked Ray if he thought I could do a handstand and his answer was to start laughing and say “You have next to no balance on your two feet and you want to stand on your hands?!”)

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