One thing I need to constantly remind myself of is that the scale is not the true measure of my success. I can find other ways to realize how much progress I am making, even if the scale is inching too slowly in the right direction.
Today I experienced just such a victory. A feeling of strong accomplishment that had absolutely nothing to do with stepping on the scale.
A couple of weeks ago, I talked about a Jillian Michaels video that I was borrowing from a friend. I have since purchased my own copy, and I did it in its entirety this afternoon. That in and of itself is a victory, but it's not even the specific one I am referring to in this post.About 30 minutes into the work-out (it's almost an hour long), there is an exercise on the mat that has proved to be the most difficult part of the video for me. By far. I'm not 100% sure on the actual name of them, but I think they're called walking planks.
Do me a favour and try these out for me right now. I'm serious. Get on the floor in the plank position, but you are resting on your forearms. Now, one side at a time, change from your forearm to a full plank position. And now back down again to your forearms. See how many you can do.
I've only done this video a handful of times over the past few weeks -- but every time I have done it, I have only managed to do about 2 of the walking planks in this form before collapsing onto my knees and doing it "the easy way."
Until today.
I managed to do each repetition in the official position. I didn't count how many reps there actually were (I was too busy grunting my way through them!), but I just know that I did them. Both times. She repeats each cycle, so just when you think you have conquered a circuit, you have to repeat it and do it all over again.
I could not get over how proud I was of myself for pushing through the pain to conquer this particular exercise. I was hurting, that's for sure -- but it was worth it. Because I can feel my body getting stronger. I'm pretty sure I was even glowing for the last 25 minutes of the work-out...okay, maybe that was the sweat. But either way, I was pumped and it left me looking forward to the next time I do the work-out. And the next time. And the next time.
(If you actually tried the walking planks just now -- let me know how you did!)


