Reflections

Hello and welcome to Tobias Talks.

Today I will be looking back over my fitness journey, what has been done well and what could be improved upon. The military term for this is an After Action Report (AAR), but perhaps another more fitting term would simply be, reflection.

I have spent a bit of time reading over my last year's entries in this blog and having all of these records for myself is a valuable asset that I hadn’t anticipated. The ability to reflect on my decisions, actions and thought processes behind them means I have a much better understanding of myself. I can see clearly where excuses were made, where difficulties were overcome and real progress made.

This is a personal blog, although everyone is welcome to read it, the subject itself is Me. To be able to observe yourself in hindsight is quite a jarring experience, but personally it helps me disassociate my thoughts with my actions. To decipher my real aims and see if I can marry up where I want to get to, with where I have been.

My goals have largely remained unchanged, although they weren’t necessarily what I thought they were. Reading through my blog it has become clear that the goal of weight loss isn’t the goal at all. I have seemed to put the real emphasis on a feeling, the feeling of “fitness”, of an overall health and an improvement to it. For that reason I will continue to have my weight goal, but only because it will improve other areas of my life.

The next area is diet. My diet has ranged wildly between strict calorie and macro counting eating only clean foods, and whilst undoubtedly this has provided good results, it is unsustainable and once I hit the weekend, the routine stops and other foods and drinks enter the diet and I unbalance the whole amount. What I have learned is that I should eat moderately at the weekend, and drink very little, if at all.

The final area I will touch on is exercise. I enjoy lifting weights and I enjoy hiking. Lifting weights is enjoyable at the time, the feeling of consistent improvement is very addictive and altering training plans to see the most improvement is a constant task. The main enjoyment I get from lifting weights isn’t the task itself, but instead to be disciplined enough to overcome my lazy nature, that is where the sense of success comes from. To work hard when you don’t want to.

Hiking is a similar experience for me, to always strive to do more than you think you are able. To bite off more than you think you can chew but still be able to swallow. A phrase I found myself repeating on my most recent hike was “How do you eat an elephant?” the answer of course being “One bite at a time”. One more step, one more inch, one more hill, it has to end at some point, but how will I feel at the end? Accomplished knowing I’ve given my all? Or disappointed in myself? Knowing that I could have gone further, or faster. The latter is a truly horrible experience, knowing you can try again another day, but you’ll never have that day back, that will always be a stain in your memory. A failed day.

So I will end with that thought;

“No More Failed Days.”

Your friend, Tobias.