May 29, 2011

The Journey: I drank a soda...

The month of May has been a complete waste as far as the Journey is concerned. I came home from Hawaii with my feet fried and I wasn't able to work out for three weeks. Even now, a month after getting sun burnt, the tops of my feet are still a little tender.

The last week or so I've made it to the gym a couple of times, but it was a struggle. Both mentally & physically. But I've completely lost the momentum I had before Hawaii. I've gained back the three pounds I lost while in Hawaii. Not only am I not working out, but because I've lost my focus & drive, I've been horrible about what I'm eating.

And as the title suggests, I drank a soda. But this isn't a bad thing. I didn't cave in, grab a Mountain Dew and suck it down. That would be a complete failure of the Journey. And while I've lost momentum, I haven't completely given up...

No, a friend of mine was coming through Canada and picked up a bottle of this awesome Strawberry Cream Soda Crush. It's very tasty but you can only get it in selected parts of Canada and he put some effort into hunting it down. So in honor of his kindness, I purposely enjoyed it with a great dinner.

I know someday I'll be able to go back to drinking soda again in moderation. But if I had a Mountain Dew, or Coke or Dr Pepper now, I know I would not be able to resist the desire to keep on drinking it, and it's readily available. The stuff he brought me from Canada is 581 miles away.(Yeah, I've checked. It would take me 11 hours to get there.)

May is almost gone, so I need to get my head ready to get back into the Journey in June. I've made some tweaks to my work schedule that should make it more convenient to get the gym in the evenings. And it's summer in Alaska, so there's tons of hiking that can be done. We've got some of that planned, and I'll post pictures as it happens.

So the lesson you should draw from this if you are on your own Journey? When you have momentum; don't lose it. When you lose momentum; do the hard work to get it back. It's as much mental as it physical.

And, if you haven't been following the Journey since the beginning, go to the first post here and read forward.

2 comments:

ORStafford said...

i am sure with summer on the horizon, that will give you a kick start. And with summer comes all the extra activities, like yard work.

tbbotts said...

Hang in there Todd- we all have setbacks, we just don't all discuss them publicly. Don't get discouraged, it's easy to do. I have confidence that you're going to follow this through. It's a great inspirtation to all of us who are following.
A sidebar- I've been following Pastor Jeff Schreve on From His Heart Ministries. He's got a website by that same name and a show on TBN on Sunday mornings. Anyway on his web site you can click on a column called Prayer Works. You can submit a prayer request and also see other peoples requests. It's totally anonymous they can only read your request and if they want to pray for you, they do and a star shows up by your request and you get an email stating that someone prayed for you. Its really encouraging. If you check it out and enjoy it, I hope you'll pass it along to your friends. Take care pal. God bless!