It’s no excuse, it is what is. It’s time for a confession to you all.
I’ve lost focus in my life. Focus on this website, focus on daily life.
I’ve been taking liberties in my eating. I still eat mostly animal-based products, but I’ve been slipping in the occasional “treat” as well.
I didn’t make it to the gym at all this week.
It’s been a stressful, busy, and hectic week in my line of work. Those weeks happen; they always have and they always will. But you have to persevere and not lose your focus in the face of that beast of stress and feeling like you don’t have enough hours in the day.
In the end, you have to make time to do the things that are most important. I didn’t do that. I failed.
Complacency won the day over just getting it done. Procrastination won the day over just putting everything else aside and focusing on that item at hand.
Writing content for this site took a backseat to, “I’ll do it later.” I kicked the can down the road.
I woke up at 3:00 AM one day last week and drove 3-and-a-half hours to work on a project in a faraway place. But that’s part of the deal.
The long and the short of it is, I ate like crap, I didn’t work out, I even lost my temper over one situation.
As a result of all that, as a result of losing my focus, this ended up in me feeling like crap and ended up with a sore back that’s been on and off for the past two weeks.
This is going to change
This is gut-check time. This article is me looking in the mirror, and telling myself:
Steve, you’re not doing well enough. You know what you did wrong. There’s no use re-hashing it ***again***. Screw that. Now, Steve, it’s time to do something about it.
First that starts with me writing a schedule. Keep in mind not every day is going to be exactly the same. I have another 3:00 AM wake-up ahead of me. But on a typical day, this has to be my routine:
5:00 AM — Wake up. Put on gym clothes, brush teeth, comb hair, make coffee, drive to the gym.
5:30 AM — Be in the gym.
6:15 AM — Be out of the gym. I don’t believe in ultra-long workouts. Instead, I follow more of a HIIT routine.
6:15 AM – 8:00 AM — Get another cup of coffee, go home, make an omelet for breakfast, shower, shave, brush teeth, comb hair, drive to my office, get to my desk.
8:00 AM – 12:00 PM — Work
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM — Work on website, lunch
1:00 PM – 5:00 PM — Work
5:00 – Bedtime — Family time, work on website as time permits.
I try to get in bed by 9:30 PM. This gives me a good night’s sleep, enough sleep to get through my day the next day.
Another area I mentioned earlier in the article is a lack of nutrition–eating too much garbage.
I do my best when I stick to animal-based foods and the occasional veggie. For work luncheons, which happen occasionally, I stick to a cobb salad. But for those other days, I’ll eat a pound of pork for lunch.
Meal-prepping is an important part of sticking to a good eating regimen. Cooking a large pork butt and dividing it into several days of lunches is a can’t-miss strategy. If I’m still hungry, I’ll pound down a can of sardines.
What if you have a “non-typical” day?
This is where I screw up most often. It’s not that I don’t know how to handle an atypical day, it’s that I don’t take an extra minute or two to strategize.
Finding food to eat on the road is a pain in the butt.
I’ve found that truck stops, believe it or not, have served as a consistent option for foods.
Most of them, namely Love’s, Pilot, and Flying J, have packages of hard-boiled eggs in counts of anywhere from four to six. For best results, I get some of those eggs and keep four bottles of water in a cooler with some ice packs. That way, I don’t have to keep stopping at convenience stores and tempting myself to their (mostly crappy) food offerings.
Ice packs in a cooler are necessary in Florida, because it’s hot. I don’t like cold, cold water, but I don’t like it warm either. The ice packs keep the water at a good “room temperature” even on the doggest of dog days of summer.
Pep talks are important
That’s what this is: It’s a pep talk.
When we go to a different way of eating, most of us mess up. And it’s not just eating, but when we go astray of our routines and when we don’t focus on what’s important. When we get distracted, basically.
This article is a way of giving myself a pep talk; simply to regain focus, to prioritize. Hopefully, this article points you in the right direction as well, just in case you ran across it after your own period of losing sight on what’s right and what’s important.
Face facts. Then move on and implement these steps.
Implement–and be better than we were yesterday.
As always, please feel free to comment in the box below.
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