personalretrainer

I seriously considered never coming back to this blog today.  I set myself a seemingly simple task… to drink approx. 2 litres of water per day – thats’s all! – and I have struggled so much.  I like water, I sit at my desk with the bottle next to me, so why is it so damn hard to pick it up during the day and drink it?!

If I am being totally honest – and it’s probably the key to this whole ‘personal retraining’ effort – it’s because I haven’t really tried.  I thought I’d created a foolproof plan to change my habits, by only introducing one thing into my life at a time.  But it wouldn’t matter if it’s one or eleven new things if I’m not truly committed to making it happen everyday until a new habit is created.  Don’t ‘they’ say it takes 21 days to create a habit?

So, in an effort to disrupt my work pattern, I am going to set up an hourly reminder in Outlook so that it flashes up on my computer screen and reminds me move my hand about 8 inches to the right, grasp that lovely refreshing live-giving water AND BL**DY WELL DRINK IT.

Jeez… if I can’t get this right, what hope is there for me?

Wish me luck.

Ok… so yesterday was a fail.  I don’t think I even drank one (750ml) bottle of water, let alone three.

But, two cool things have happened.  I didn’t feel the ‘oh f*ck it’ moment (because I guess there was nothing else to throw the towel in on)… and I still have belief that this will work (because it demonstrates to me why I do need to take it slowly and retrain myself properly!)

If it was that easy, I’d already be doing it!  So, I’ll just keep going

Day 3 and all is well.  Just adding one thing seems to be working.  In fact, I’ve noticed that I actually want to make healthier food choices… because I don’t have to.  It does feel good to hydrate more but it is definitely going to take focus for this to become a habit.  In order to pace myself (rather than downing over a litre in one hit which I did yesterday!) I’m going to try saying to myself that I can’t have my lunch until one (750ml) bottle is gone, and the same before dinner which leaves me to sip on the third and last one in the evening.

Admittedly I did go out last night so the benefits of the water may have been somewhat compromised! 

It’s day 1 and I woke with a wonderful sense of calm.  For once, starting something like this is a complete anti-climax – just as I hoped!

To explain, the plan is to retrain myself to be healthier but I want to do this by slowly introducing change.  Just one thing each week.  I can safely say that I am no poster child for vitality… yes, yes, I know the theory but I find it completely overwhelming to pick one day and just start a whole new regime of eating, sleeping, exercising etc.  The pressure is too much, I crack and then because I’ve failed I throw in the towel completely and think f*ck it!  Until I choose another Monday when I’ll start all over again.

To add insult to injury, I’ll tend to do a bit of a run-up when I start these things… I drink, smoke and eat MORE the weekend before a big Monday!  And worse still, if I do manage to get through 5 miserable days of carb-free detox, I think I deserve a reward… which generally consists of a carb-fuelled re-tox!

So, this is my antidote to fad diets and fast, unsustainable results.  What I realise is that I’ve convinced myself that I have absolutely no self-control.  As soon as I try to stick to a plan, I seem to obsess over ways to justify not sticking to it!  That’s why I’m going to pick one simple thing each week to add to my life, which allows me to focus on getting that right before adding any other change.

Today, I committed to just add water.  Three 750ml bottles of filtered water sipped across the day.  And the emphasis is all about ADDING not taking away, for the time being anyway.  So it’s 7 days of just adding water and then I’ll add something else into the mix (and continue the water of course).

Day 1… done!  Easy

It’s Saturday and I’m going to start on Monday.  There isn’t really preparation required for what I intend to do… so all I need is the commitment to start.

The plan is simply to retrain myself.

Simple.