Managing Expectations (Great and Small)

Despite knowing otherwise, we cling onto the fallacy that progress is linear. It’s a fallacy I gently remind my coaching clients – and one that I needed recently. When the stakes are personal, emotions arise that cloud our perceptions and sometimes judgment.

Blog followers know I’ve been on a fitness journey to be the strongest and fittest I’ve EVER been. Included in my personal coaching package were Fit3D scans. The baseline scans from earlier this month showed that I had a LOT of work to do, especially with my basal metabolic rate (BMR), or the amount of energy my body burns at rest. (For reference, BMR is on a scale between 0 and 2000.) Based on the markers of average for this instrument, my goal is to get to 1500. I'm nowhere close to the average right now.

The good news: from the second scan four days ago, I went up 14 points in my BMR, from 1131 to 1145. Progress. Where I regressed were in body fat and other health measurements.

I was so disappointed immediately after seeing the results. While I was feeling stronger and more balanced, not to mentioned feeling (and seeing!) my muscles grow, I was gaining body fat, especially in my mid-section – the very area I’m focused to LOSE the fat.

On my walk home, I pondered what happened. Apart from eating out a few times a week, I eat rather clean. What could it be?

It took me a few days of working through the emotions first to allow the executive functioning area of my brain to take over. Even though I was at the gym four times a week, I was only focused on doing weights. I had “forgotten” the importance of movement, of getting those walks in on my non-weight, or rest days.

Since those second scans four days ago, I have been intentional about getting my steps in not just on my rest days from weights but even on days I use weights. For right now, all I can report is that the mid-section is NOT growing larger.

How do you respond to setbacks? What is the narrative that swirls in your head? Is it mean…or compassionate?

Rosie the Riveter…before she was Rosie the Riveter. At the Heinz History Center, Strip District. Fascinating story behind the iconic image.