I have resigned myself to the fact that I am unlikely to finish this dietbet successfully. This plateau has hit me hard, and despite my best efforts, I am simply not breaking it as quickly as I have in the past. I am still going to do my best, and hopefully will come close to my goal, but I am also being as realistic as I can about what my capacity is in less than two weeks. I am not prepared to do harm to myself in order to acheive a desire number- that's not what this journey is about.
What I do know is that my strength, my endurance, and my resolve are getting stronger by the day. I know that my body is becoming leaner and more toned with every work out and that sometimes these changes don't show up on scales as quickly as we might hope.
This was very much what I expected when i decided to do T25 during this challenge. i know that my body takes around six weeks to get acclimated to a new, more vigourous routine, and that this program would likely sabotage my weight loss efforts for a few weeks as I would be gaining muscle weight and retaining water at a much higher rate than I have in weeks past.
I know that if I stop working out entirely and just focus on diet, the scale will do what I want it to. But it will just be a temporary drop. I am at the stage where if I want more permanent body changes, I simply have to accept the fact that sometimes weight isn't the best indicator of health.
As such, i am realigning my goals. As I mentioned, I will still go as hard as I can and be extra careful with my diet and exercise over the next two weeks. But I am also going to redouble my efforts on strength. I want to be stronger than I ever have been. I want to do more reps, sweat buckets and come out feeling like a champion.
So regardless of what happens with this dietbet, I will continue doing dietbets to hold myself accountable and to force myself to confront the scale and see in it an ally, sometimes misguided but generally good intentioned.
I am now into week 3 of T25. I am 20% done the program and am already planning my next challenge. I am excited to move past the Alpha cycle and test myself in Gamma, a cycle which I have never tried.
I am not discouraged. I am not disappointed. I am not in this for a four week fix. I am in this forever, because I never want to not feel this good again.