Tick-Tock [Croc]

Tick-tock, tick-tock...

I'm about to tell you something that may be hard to hear. You might want to "X" right out of this post, but if you stick around, I promise it doesn't end walking the plank into the mouth of a crocodile.

Fitness results take time. LOTS of time. Whether you are hoping to be faster, stronger, leaner, more muscular... it all takes a VERY long time to show significant results. I'm not going to sugar coat this because the sooner you accept it, the sooner you can move on and actually get to work on whatever is your ultimate fitness goal.

A little story time: I have done a 12 week diet more times than I can remember and not one of them ever worked. 12 weeks {3 months}, it sounds like the perfect amount of time, right? Long enough to see results but short enough to commit. "I'm going so hard these next 12 weeks, I'm going to look incredible after! Go me!" The absolute agony and ridicule I would put myself through because I just wanted to be skinny! I would not only starve and over exercise, I would beat myself up almost every minute of every day for what I looked like and how hard I wasn't working. I'd spend hours researching fat burners, muscle builders, anything for a quick fix. Cut to the end of the 12 weeks and guess what? I wasn't happy with my results. I didn't feel accomplished or skinnier. I felt like I had failed. Why? Because for the amount of hell I was putting myself through, 12 weeks is not enough time to make a major change in your body! Read that again, and promise me you will never do another timed diet or skinny pill!

The day that I gave up the ideas of fit for summer or just a few more inches off my waist or just a little more muscle on my arms or 1 minute faster mile pace was the day that I actually started enjoying fitness for what it was - an endorphin rush that makes your body and mind feel like you can conquer the world! Can you honestly think of a time that you exercised for pure enjoyment? No preconceived idea of how far, how long, how many calories burned that you wanted to reach? It feels like euphoria! 

Something crazy happened when I started working out like that. I started jumping out of bed every morning before work excited to get to the gym. I'm not lying, I was genuinely excited to go kill my leg day or go for a run. If one morning I felt tired and sore, I'd take the day off and not beat myself up for missing a workout. Which in turn led to the next morning jumping out of bed because exercise was no longer a punishment for a body I wished I had. All of a sudden, when I stopped analyzing myself in the mirror every day looking for the smallest amount of fat loss from the day before, my stomach started looking flatter! When I stopped cursing my arms for not being thin, my shoulders started to show more muscle definition! Think about how fast time seems to go by. It's Christmas next week.. where did 2017 go? When you stop wishing for your dream body, time slips away and that LOTS OF TIME I mentioned earlier will go by in the blink of an eye. You'll wake up one day and realize "Wow, I did it!" And then walk right back into the gym like it's no big deal and you're a BOSS! 

So go ahead, throw away the clock and leave it to the crocodiles.