This is now my fourth attempt to write my daily activity of the day. I was first sidetracked watching a small rabbit hopping along the separation fencing of the backyard from the garden area. He/she looked awfully curious how to get over into the garden area (my fiancé and my’s 1st garden bed in our house). As s/he hopped along the fence-line I  watched enjoying the sun shining outside and the robins hunting the worms (woke up around 5:30-6:00am), curious if I needed to get my slippers on and check to see if there was anything left in the garden bed at all.

The rabbit finally gave up and went out the back fence into the neighbors, but after about 10min I began seeing the blackberry bushes shake around far more than the wind was blowing. Becoming distracted watching the little rabbit by the fence, this time I became more concern because it seemed the rabbit was really making an all out effort to get to the other side. However, my concern for the garden quickly turned to concern for the rabbit as the fencing began bouncing around.

Tossing on my slippers I briskly walked as best I could in slippers outside to check on the rabbit. As my concerns became reality, I realized the rabbit trapped halfway in the fencing. Fencing wire isn’t the strongest, and can easily bend, but the rabbit was attempting to get through the 3rd hole up, taller than s/he is, and became high-centered so to speak. The rabbit did break free unharmed as soon as I was about 5ft from him/her, then dipped into a hole below the back fence.

It wasn’t until later in the night that I began to think of the rabbit again and how it was stuck for at least a minute by the time it broke free. Trapped in the fence it became in a panic in the current situation. However, while the rabbit was seemingly stuck without a means to break-free, it took a supposedly greater threat (human walking toward it, even though I wanted to help it), to really turn on the fight-or-flight instinct of the rabbit to quickly break-free without any help.

Why did this rabbit event stick out in my mind? I feel I can relate to the rabbit’s situation, not in the real sense, but in a metaphorical sense. Much of our lives I feel have a sense of feeling as though they’re high-centered, teeter-tottering back and forth not making any real progress. An until something greater comes along to force us into our fight-or-flight instincts, we become complacent with the struggle we’re in without forcing ourselves into results. And if something, someone, or some event doesn’t show itself being a greater threat or reason to change, we may never change our high-centered life.

I feel this is true in my career, and I feel this true in my diet/exercise. My career I’ve hit my ceiling at my employer for many years, neither room to grow due to my success on nights I can’t move to a day shift, nor step down to take on less responsibility and hours because I am relentless at maintaining success. However, my diet and exercise is also much to blame for this high-centered feeling. We’ve all been there, we want to lose fat and gain muscle and tone up.

Through either a doctor bringing along a bigger fear to engage our fight-or-flight to start taking health seriously, or a bigger picture where we want to do more physical events, to the seasonal feelings of wanting that “beach body”. We all have teeter-tottered our goals, begin making progress, and then slip of at times, make progress, fall of the wagon, back in the saddle, and so on and so on.

Over the years my weight has jumped around a lot. I’m both highly motivated when I’m focused on nutrition and exercise, but also highly motivated at work and diet/nutrition goes right out the window working long hours with little breaks on lack of sleep. It’s difficult staying motivated to eat well when you feel too tired to care. But then once I have a second to breath and reflect on how I look and feel again, I quickly focus on nutrition and exercise again.

About 3 years ago, I use to calculate my macros and measure all my food, write down every item for every meal. I loved the number aspect of it all, however, I quickly realized that although I began making steady and great results, my whole life outside work was planning meals and planning workouts. Although I went from 216lbs down to 164lbs in less than 9 months, that came with a lot of sacrifice in time for life just to meal prep every meal.

So what I began doing was a collective 3 or 4-day macro calculations and begin subtracting that total as I planned meals. I won’t go into details of how to calculate your macros in this activity, as their are many sites you can research to aid calculation, but I’ll give you tips of how I better prepared my meals to regain more of my life.

1. Please consult with your physician about your exercise and nutritional needs and limitations are (I am not a professional).

2. Follow your physicians plan/recommendations first to help prevent any concerns they may have about your health risks.

3. Once you know the nutrition plan you’re going to pursue, try simplifying it as much as possible by shopping and preparing in bulk.

4. Shop for discounts on higher-end food, try keeping processed foods to a minimum if you’re serious about nutrition.

5. Plan meals for 3-4 day stretches, cook/prepare and store these foods for quick an easy meals.

6. Visit a local restaurant supply store and buy package containers of various sizes and materials.

7. Make sure to have freeze-able containers and prepare/cook your own versions of frozen dinners for quick and far healthier fast meals.

8. Use sandwich bags/small closing sauce cups for portion control. I put a measure of peanut butter in these sauce cups for celery, banana, or frozen grape for a snack.

9. Section out larger containers of an item into smaller containers for quick use. I’ll take containers roughly equal to however many serving sizes I want of the item and portion it out equally as best I can into the amount of servings I choose.

10. Pick your two least busy days to do meal prep, it’ll take a few weeks to get a routine, but greatly helps in the long run.

11. And have fun with it, keep the meal preps as simple as possible, don’t try calculating each item or meal, try calculating several days worth at once and begin subtracting from that.

My exercise today was just a brief walk with the dog for about 30-40min down the road and hill on our road. Nothing crazy at this time. But tomorrow I’ll be hitting my gym with my current simple workout plan that is  one exercise for 3min in the morning, and one exercise for 3min at night. I’ll get into that in more detail in another post down the road.

But for now, don’t let yourself continue life as that rabbit, don’t wait for a doctor to tell  you to make change. Don’t let work hold you at limits of your potential. Begin life for yourself and those you love. Work hard, but find ways to play hard, too.

Until next time, keep LivingLife, and take care of yourself and those you love!

Have comments/questions? Please feel free to email me at my2cents@livinglife-blog.com

“Remember, I’m NOT a qualified doctor, trainer, physiologist, philosopher, or have any other certified qualification. I’m only someone who’s passionate to learn & develop personal skills, habits, goals & finding a balance life-style, while sharing my journey through experiences.

– Developer of LivingLife-Blog”