Life has a way of persuading us to postpone our necessary actions, especially when they are needed the most. It happens for many reasons and most of them are led by personal choice. Sometimes stress can build and push us to a point where we only wish to go home, go to sleep, and wake feeling refreshed. Other times we feel a true lack of motivation and it leads to something that can only be described as laziness. When it comes to fitness and exercise we develop a "make it up later" attitude when the time comes to workout or eat healthy. "It won't hurt my workout progress to skip today" or "this one double bacon cheeseburger with a chocolate milkshake and fries is no big deal. I'll just burn it off later." We have trained ourselves to look at these situations as a small baby-step back that can easily be recovered from but it is so much more than that and it all adds up.
Let's take a look on small choice that develops into something more. It's a typical Tuesday evening around 10 pm and you are getting prepared for bed. As you lay down, you get the urge to turn on the TV and it just so happens that one of your favorite movies is on. Instead of recording it (as most people have DVR nowadays) or just making a note to purchase it at the store later, you decide to stay up and watch it. This put you to sleep around 12 pm. No big deal. Wednesday morning is finally here and you wake in a panic. You slept through your alarm and it is now 10 am and you are already late for work. Already you can see how this has thrown a wrench into the day. Now you have missed breakfast, you're stressed because of your tardiness, and you're struggling to make it to lunch, which is when you exercise. Whether it is a walk around the block or a trip to the gym, your exercise will suffer and because of your mood, you may decide to skip it all together and go for some quick, fattening, fast food to fill the void in your stomach. Because of the lack of dedication to a solid routine, you are now stressed, your daily nutritional intake has suffered, and you have skipped the workout that might have at least helped the situation. One small choice that seemed insignificant at the moment has now put your whole fitness in a fragile state.
I use that example just to prove one small idea. Consistency is the key to success in any venture. Everyone has their "off" days when they feel like complete shit and motivation has disappeared into the distant fog of the day. We lose our dedication to the cause because events that happen each and every day and the only crutch that we have to fall back on is consistency. While the workout may not be 100% and the diet may slip a little to the left of healthy, consistency will keep you on track and within the ballpark of our achievements. Even a baby-step back can snowball into something much worse.
When it comes to diet and exercise, the serious athlete knows that workouts, diets, and rest all happen in a rhythm that we predetermine and if we change that rhythm without a full change in the song, then you are placing yourself in danger of slipping over the cliff during your climb to the top. While it may seem to be a recoverable step back, in the long run, it might knock you to the bottom and force you to start your climb over. That is what happened to me in the past. The future is approaching fast though and I will never be that person again. Strength through consistency.
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