Approaching 408 Hours and Nailing It

I am just about 408 hours and 8 million decisions into my challenge. I must say, my good decisions are starting to outweigh the bad, for sure.

I woke up and couldn't walk today. I did my first Muay Thai class Wednesday. I wasn't terribly sore the day after, but the (good) soreness grew. I could not straighten my legs when I got out of bed. My calves were exploding. The pain is a good reminder that I am making progress. The scale is not a good tool at this point.

Today we were hit by the blizzard. My gym was canceled and even if it were opened, there is no way to get there. We have over two feet of snow so far. The me before the challenge would have been defeated by today, snowed in with junk food and no body pump. However, I feel freakin' awesome. It is 6pm and I can say that I nailed. Not only did I run 30 unscheduled minutes yesterday to make up for missing my class, but I ate like a champ. I still have 250 calories left and I have been outside and active shoveling and playing with my family. I feel good.

The tricks that I have learned up to this point are, first and foremost, get in a daily routine. I can't stress this enough. Not long before the challenge, I did not have a routine, at all. That equates to a mess of a life. I made a schedule for exactly how I wanted my day to go, hour by hour. I started setting my alarm for 6:30 and followed the same routine every day. This was KEY to my progress so far. Then I began to build on it.

Another thing that is helping me through, La Croix naturally flavored sparkling water. OMG. I love them. This is my treat. No artificial flavors, zero calories, zero sodium. The flavors also make me think of summer, that always helps.

My Fitness Pal is something that I started using yesterday. I was feeling defeated after a week and a half of hard work and clean eating and the scale did not budge! That is when I started plugging in my food. Yea, I was eating really healthy, but too much! My carbs and fat were too high too! It is so much easier to hit your goals when your eliminate the questionable.

Hour by hour. Some hours are more challenging than others, but for the most part, it is getting much easier to make positive changes.