It was an uneventful weekend, and I was trying to shed calories by walking down the city streets after a tummy full of fried dumplings and sipping on the famed pearl milk tea (100% sugar, of course).
Despite walking two miles to shake off the heaviness of the meal, I still felt packed – full in the tummy and full of guilt. Especially since this was supposed to be the 30th day of my 60-day weight loss challenge.
Why was it that I could never maintain consistency in my resolve to lose weight? It was not as if I was not exercising due diligence in finding suitable fitness training videos.
Trust me, I spent hours curating the ‘right’ content.
Easily doable? Check.
Won’t interfere with my regular routine? Check.
No requirement to go to the gym? Check.
Spoon-feeding on the recommended clothes to buy for the routine? Check.
Everything is always lined up, ready to go, a day before the routine begins. It’s only on the day of or the day after that the routine starts to break.
It could be oversleeping the day before, a stomach upset, an early morning meeting, loss of internet at the time of the workout (yes, that’s a thing!), or an impromptu meeting with a college friend who is only in town for the day.
As you can see, given my long list of excuses, I am as far as one can be in creating and sticking to a fitness regimen. My multiple failures in maintaining a fitness routine, might I humbly say, do make me an authority on how not to lose weight.
Here are some of my personal favorites of what NOT to do to lose weight:
- Sleeping late the day before, especially if you plan to exercise in the morning.
- Strictly time-boxing your exercise regimen when you know you don’t have the discipline to go through with it.
- Overeating on the ‘exercise’ days, assuming the workout more than compensates for the gluttony.
- Pearl milk bubble tea four times a week is not a good idea.
- Watching exercise videos does not count as exercise.
- Not starting small when you don’t have a reliable history of a consistent exercise and nutrition regimen.
- Not complementing your routine with mindful nutrition.
- Taking this new addition to your ‘routine matinale’ lightly.
I consider this a journal entry, sans the ‘dear diary’ part, more than anything else. I would more likely smile in amusement looking at this decades later if not getting ready to write a 50-page document around my failures with a fitness regimen. All the while thinking about the famed diary entry by Flannery O’Connor:
“Today I have proved myself a glutton—for Scotch oatmeal cookies and erotic thought. There is nothing left to say of me.”
Friends of Words 