Hi There,
Welcome back to Kat & Tshepi’s blog. We hope you had a blessed week. Our week was good and fun, we had a planned hiking trip with a group of community members that we train with on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We were excited and looking forward to the trip, but at the same time, being introverted and not social people, we were very anxious and a bit troubled about what would happen on the trip. Our fitness journey is really evolving into a health and fitness lifestyle, it is something we did not foresee or plan. All we started with was a desire to lose some weight, get a little bit healthier and fit, the next thing we know is that we have started a community fit-camp (just a fancy word of saying a group of people exercising together to get fit 🙂 ), we have become proponents of fitness and find ourselves talking about fitness and health all day long. We even started this blog to try to inspire people to get fit. Fitness and health is really becoming a lifestyle for us, it is transforming us into being better versions of ourselves, and not just physically but mentally and emotionally as well. We are happy with this transformation 🙂 .
This week, we continued with our commitment of ensuring that we have foods on our meal plans available at all times, especially the vegetables. This has helped a lot with the desire for simple carbohydrates that are convenient and easily accessible but are very high in calories, it has also helped with reducing the desire for snacking because once you are full, the frequency of snacking becomes less and you would feel guilty for wanting more food after having so much vegetables and meat 🙂 . We also continued with tracking our daily calories intake, it is amazing how much we are learning about nutritional value of foods from this practice, we have even moved from just looking at overall calorie target to balancing the macronutrients. Meaning that we are selecting the foods and quantity with a focus on the values of carbohydrates, proteins and fats they provide, but this does not mean we don’t consider the taste and enjoyment of such foods because we do, not every nutritiously packed food makes it on our plate, it must also taste good at least 🙂 .
We also managed to fulfil our training commitments in this week, we had a challenge with a planned shoulders and back resistance training as it fell on the day that we were going on a hiking trip. But we decided to sacrifice one of our rest days to squeeze-in the shoulders and back workout. Sometimes sacrifices are required to achieve a desired goal and that would mean to forego some of the comforts, luxuries and even excuses for some time (we are just talking about sacrificing a rest day, right? 🙂 ). This brings us to this week’s topic “Sacrifice”.
1.Sacrifice
“Time waits for no man” is an expression you would hear when there are a lot of things that needs to be done but only with a limited amount of time available. It is really the truth that time does not wait, time has no dependencies, we have to abide by it and accomplish all our tasks within its limits. And when you have a lot of things to accomplish, more things to do than time permits, then some things needs to be let go, some things needs to be sacrificed. In most cases, the things that we need to sacrifice in life are the things we enjoy the most, things that gives us fulfilment and joy….this sounds very unfair. Indeed, Sacrifice is unfair, but it is unfair only temporarily. In reality, it prolongs and compounds the intensity of what we are sacrificing for so that there will be more fulfilment and joy later on.
“Nothing worth having comes easy” is a famous quote that you would hear when the going gets tough, when you have to challenge your comfort zone in order to be better, when you have to trade easy for hard, it is just sacrifice. On embarking on a fitness journey, the lines of sacrifice are very clear, some nice foods must be traded for healthier foods, some relaxing times must be traded for workout times, some excuses must be traded for actual work. To achieve a desired fitness level, one has to sacrifice the comforts of simple carbohydrates and fatty foods, as well as a sedentary lifestyle. If a healthy and fit life is worth having, then healthier foods choices must be made and exercising needs to be allocated a fair share of time, and this does not come easy.
On our fitness journey, we had a fair share of sacrifices to do to lose weight and get a bit fit. We had to let go of many of the foods we enjoyed, we had to let go of baked goods, chips, pizzas, chocolates, burgers and sweets. Our former primary food choices had to become secondary and be replaced by whole foods, the fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts, and lean meats. The foods we used to eat as staples are now secondary, they are not cut-out completely but we consume them occasionally. The excuses of lack of time had to be sacrificed. Our schedule is indeed always hectic, there is really not much room for exercising that is adequate for our desired fitness level, this meant that we had to sacrifice TV, internet surfing, relaxation times and some sleep time to accommodate exercising (whew, waking up at 4am is no joke 😦 ). But with all these sacrifices, we are beginning to see our lives transform to a fuller and richer lifestyle than we would have without the sacrifices. We are beginning to realize the benefits that are much greater than our set target. Is all this worth the sacrifice? we certainly believe so.
That’s it for this week, sacrifices are not comfortable and easy, but the benefits are more fulfilling and joyous than what is being sacrificed. In this week, we plan to continue with our training and eating plan and making improvements where we see the need. It is getting more and more difficult to lose weight as months goes by but our commitment is certainly increasing and keeps us going. We are doing our best. Until then, stay blessed.
Kat & Tshepi
Kat & Tshepi 