In-betweens

Most people look at Monday's as the beginning of a new week, a fresh start. The last week which was never as good as it should have been was followed by a weekend where you ate and drank more than your guilt allows and you didn't train nearly as hard as you should have. But hey the week before was really hard!. 

All kidding aside, Monday is a serious day not because marks a new week but because its a day of In-betweens. It took all the willpower in the world to not eat the last couple pieces of pizza for Monday's breakfast.Start the day off right and get back on track. You even packed some food to avoid snack trays and processed meals. But man you really wanted a hamburger over the weekend and never got it. Those two donuts you had Saturday tasted so good and its been a long time since you had one, so why not?  You always pass them up at the coffee shop and they look so good, never had one from there. 

Have you caught on yet that this happens not just on Mondays but every day of your life when you decide to get back on track with something?  It is so easy to fall off the good food wagon and when we try to hop back on it's moving pretty fast which means we are all bound to miss our first few hand holds and have to try again Bad habits from the weekend carry over to the next day. It is these times when we are In-Between, following the right path and following the easy path. Sometimes we are inbetween for only one meal, sometimes it goes a whole day. Admit it when your on a training high and get really sick, an Inbetween could last the whole next week. 

A Inbetween is dangerous because it attacks two different mental attitudes. The first is the 'I've earned this' attitude because you have made great strides in your goals, lost weight, gained strength, speed, shape and your rewarding your good behavior with bad. The second is the egocentric process of believing you are in control of yourself. You can start and stop destructive behavior without intervention. You are in control. 

You may have earned the right to go off your diet or your training plan for a day or two. You're rewarding yourself and you should. It's when you have to make the decision to eat the oatmeal over the pie, or go to 5am swim over the warm bed that creates the Inbetween. And trust the experts, ego is pride, double the pride, double the fall. Never be so sure of yourself that you self sabotage a day or week to indulge in gratification.

Creating positive habits are not 100% protection from In-Betweens. It is however a great way to stay away from pitfalls. Planning a cheat meal or cheat day, scheduling rest in a hard training cycle, even planning walks inside your run workout all defeat these inbetween moments we eventually confront. 

Recognize when your inbetween the path you want and the one you don't . Be prepared to fight against being a common man for one more meal or one more day. Your worth it.