Day 6 of my personal 12 week challenge to better health and fitness.

Hi everybody,

Creating my own 12 week challenge for myself brings about its own insights.

We probably all know this point but it is worth repeating. If we fail to plan, we could be planning to fail. This is where using something like the 12 week challenge worksheets can assist, otherwise we are leaving our planning up to chance.

I know that I like to be spontaneous at times but the concept of having a weekly plan tends to keep me on track. From my experiences, it is too easy to deceive myself into thinking that I am on track but in actual fact not!

The advantage of the worksheets is that you can record what activity you have done and look back over the week and see in black and white what you have actually done. You are not relying on your memory.

I am far from perfect with this, but I do realise the importance of gauging my performance.

As an example of this, I work in a very busy inbound government medical call centre. Every call that we receive is recorded on a productivity spreadsheet. The type of call is recorded as well. As a call centre operator, I can tell how I am progressing throughout the day. Any processing work I do between calls is also recorded. The end result of all this is knowing at the end of the day my productivity. I aim for 100% productivity. Sometimes the result is more; sometimes it is less but I know after a 4 week period just how well I am going.

Use this as an example to encourage yourself to map your weight loss progress. Don’t leave it to chance. From my experiences, if I leave it to chance, then September rolls into October and then before you know it Xmas is here.

If you haven’t already done so, download the worksheets from my blog at
http://jamestansell.com and join me in challenging yourself to better health and fitness.

Catch ya soon.

By the way, we celebrated International Pirate Day at work yesterday, so the extra temptations were on show. The treasures I am referring to were cakes and sweets, not gold!

So remember to get into the habit of planning your week as this will generally keep you on track.

Have a great weekend!

bye for now.

James

Day 2 of my 12 week challenge

Hi everybody,

Yesterday I started my personal 12 week weight loss challenge to control my weight and to improve my health.

The purpose of my comments are to encourage and to support others on their quest to lose weight and to improve their health.

For many people weight loss is going to be a journey. If you have weight to lose, then losing weight is not going to happen overnight. Your extra weight probably took months or even years to accumulate. Be patient and make it a journey.

Day 1 of my 12 week challenge didn’t go exactly to plan. I started my day as planned with a delicious banana protein shake made on vanilla soy milk. My morning snack was a small collection of mixed hiker nuts high in protein. My lunch was going to be another shake but I forgot to bring my shake powder!

As we know from experiences, the best laid plans can go astray and this is where it is important to adjust your thinking and find a substitute. I ended up eating a chicken kebab which did the job for me.

Over the 12 weeks of your journey you will need to adjust your thinking at times and make adjustments. Remember, the race to lose weight is against yourself but make sure that you are moving forward not backwards!

This is all I want to share today. Move forwards, make adjustments where needed, and keep up a positive outlook.

It is a journey, and some journeys take time but keep moving toward your desired goal.

Bye for now

James
http://jamestansell.com