Consistently Consistent

This week has been one of the more frustrating since starting this journey last February. Over the past few years I have dealt with some awful feet issues. Plantar fasciitis, gout (king shit!), and something the Podiatrist could never figure out. I have been very fortunate that since making lifestyle changes these have been mostly nonexistent. That changed Monday night. I had one of the worst plantar fasciitis flare ups that Ive ever had. The pain has been awful, but the frustration may be worse. There’s frustration of feeling like I’ve had a setback because I thought it had gotten past all of this. Not being able to go to the gym or get in steps has been extremely frustrating. Then there’s just not being able to do normal, everyday tasks because walking hurt so bad. Also a significant lack of sleep. I have done everything I could to expedite the healing process…contrast baths, stretching, frozen balls, frozen bottles, ibuprofen, and some super tens machine (shoutout Pathways to Healing). Through all of this and resting, it has improved greatly. There was still some frustration and worry that the scale would start to creep back up this week. I decided to rip off the bandaid and step on the scale this morning. It had gone down a couple of pounds!! That felt like such win after the week I have had. This week taught me how important is to control what I can control, and this week that was the consistency of my diet. 

Consistency is something my trainer has preached from the very beginning, and consistency has been the key factor in all of the progress that I have made. Changes, both good and bad, take time to show up. Once I really grasped that, it helped tremendously in both making progress physically and changing the way I thought about everything with my health. One bad meal wasn’t going to ruin everything I had done. I would often worry that over eating when going out or something of that nature would derail everything all the progress that I had made. Seeing that it didn’t really change anything if I kept everything else consistent was huge for me. In my opinion it makes “dieting” something that is way easier to maintain. It is such mental game, and just learning that a bad meal wasn’t actually bad has been an incredible breakthrough for me. Stepping on the scale today was another huge breakthrough. With not being able to work out this week, I really focused on my diet. I knew I needed to cut back a little, nothing drastic, and keep that consistent throughout the week. I don’t really use anything to track my calories or anything like that. I pretty much eat the same thing everyday, so it is a bit easier. There was still the worry that the scale wouldn’t reflect that. Seeing a number that was even lower than last week was a huge win for me and showed how important staying consistent is.