“Dieting and physical exercise are hard. Being fat and out-of-shape is hard. Choose your hard.”

My motto these past few years. Anytime I’ve wanted to give in, I would remind myself to choose my hard.

Which ‘hard’ is always a personal choice.

If I don’t feel ‘on plan’ about some aspect of my life, my mood when I go to bed is anywhere between slightly annoyed to majorly mad at myself, depending on the size of the self-imposed delays to my project. I don’t experience procrastination well–not that I don’t procrastinate–and I suck at making excuses for not following through. The Hubs will confirm that I’m not fun to live with when I’m disappointed, especially with myself. I’ve come to realize it takes more energy to NOT DO projects as I intend them, due to all the internal turmoil, than it takes to just do them and gain a feeling of personal satisfaction and pride.

When I’ve excused my way out of doing a workout, or gone ‘off-plan’ on my nutrition, I’ve experienced regret. It’s just how I am when I set goals and don’t live up to them. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Regret and owning up to things is how we process our actions so that we can appreciate better choices. I had to learn to experience regret and then let it go–a pivotal point for moving forward and creating improvement.

I find that once I get back ‘on plan’ that after a few days of eating well and doing my workouts, I go to bed happy with myself. Maybe all the yummy endorphins and nutrition make me feel satiated and at peace with myself. Or maybe it’s the personal respect of keeping my own promises.

There hasn’t been one single workout I’ve regretted. Not one.

There hasn’t been a time when I’ve made a nutritional meal choice that I’ve regretted.

I’ve just never had a nice piece of wild salmon with a great salad, and then thought to myself, “That sucked. Why did I eat that?” Or left the track and thought, “Why did I run three miles today? What a waste of my time?!”

Never happened. Not once.

There’s a saying in the fitness world, “The only workout you regret is the one you didn’t do.”