Slacking Off Just Before the Deadline

The date for the completion of my one year goal rolls around in 6 weeks time. As I draw closer to the date there are a few things that I have come to realise:

1. I am not going to reach my original goal.
2. Even if I did, I will not look how I envisioned at that bodyfat percentage.
3. I will reach my goal, and even better ones, but it will take a bit longer.

My goal was to reach 25% body fat by 7th July 2007. A few weeks ago I made realision 2 that 25% would not be anywhere near the kind of look that I have in my head of exactly what I want to be like. As I learn more about bodyfat and talk with others in my new gym I now see that I will need to have a percentage in my teens before I get there.

Summer is here and I'm still at 30% body fat. On the other hand I've dropped around 10%, losing 25lbs in the process. I have been keeping track of my progress over the year and today I made myself a line chart. I can clearly see that I made great progress for the first few months, had a large blip around Christmas, stumbled my way through the early part of this year and then got back on track and have been making good progress since then. So this leads me to realisation number 3. I can lose fat, I don't have to be perfect, I can skip workouts sometimes, I can eat takeaways sometimes, I can have a normal life and still make progress.

So, my beloved summer is upon us and I intend to enjoy it. I have more social events during the summer so I wont be eating perfectly all the time. Not only that but over the last few months I have become so obsessed with reaching my goal by my deadline that I've been overdoing it with the exercise. At one point I actually tried working out three times in one day. That is just too much. I'm not an athlete. I'm an ordinary person with a day job, a family, a social life and lots of interests. Fat loss is a goal, it is not my entire life.

So, I've decided to relax. I'm going to try to exercise daily but I'm dropping two of my cardio sessions and one of my weight training sessions to give me time to work on some of my other interests (software development). I'm going to continue with my current eating plan as normal but I'm not going to obsess over it. I'll continue to improve recipes and look for new ones but I'll also continue to enjoy my social life and eat out now and then without feeling guilty.

The fat will come off and it will do so slowly. It wont be linear but overall, it will move in the right direction. I find myself in a position now where I have confidence in my ability to lose fat safely. It's not easy but I really don't have to kill myself to do it so I can finally just relax a bit and enjoy all that life has to offer, and not just my new gym!