Starting this little challenge felt and sounded like a good idea at the time.

“It’s gonna be so good, I’ll share my journey and get a perky butt in the mean time”. Blah blah blah. I hate past Hannah right now. Who gives a flying fuck about having a good butt? That is my mood right now. And I’ll be honest with you: I haven’t been hectic clean eating or sacrificing my love for beer … I’ve just been trying to tweak my little bad habits, and even that has sucked. Sure, it felt good the first week, but that gung-ho-ness motivation I had at the start has gone. I ain’t even gonna lie.

When a fitness challenge is a good idea:

• at the beginning
• at the end (if you make it)
• when you’re sick of feeling shitty about squeezing into a pair of jeans
• when you’re sick of feeling bloated from beers and pasta and want to take control of your life

When a fitness challenge is not a good idea:

• when it’s 2pm and you’re dying for a piece of office chocolate and a cup of tea with sugar
• when you’re completely out of energy and someone at work jokes about you having adrenal fatigue, and then you get on Dr. Google and start panicking that you might actually have it
• when you develop a stupid knee injury
• when you want to eat and drink all the things you promised yourself you wouldn’t (pasta, pizza, cheese sauce, gravy, donuts, junior burgers from McDonald’s … )
• when you realise you’re probably addicted to beer
• when you’ve forgotten why you started in the first place …

And that, that point right there, is the killer. When you’ve forgotten why you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing. I’m at the halfway mark and I’m already like “meh, it’s not worth it”. I just don’t wanna.

Sidenote: anyone else notice how the “not a good idea” list is bigger than the “is good idea” list? Just saying.

I am of the belief that if I am giving up on something over and over again, that it’s just not important enough to me. It doesn’t mean I’m not trying, or I don’t want it or desire it, but something is stopping me. Something isn’t working. I can list all the “reasons” I like: “it’s cold, I’m tired, I deserve a treat after a big week of work, my knee hurts, I’m addicted to food (seriously), I look okay as is anyway, blah blah”, but at the end of the day, they’re all excuses. I don’t want it enough. I will let anything and everything get in the way because it’s not a priority.

This has opened my eyes to the fact that I need to reassess my goals and ask myself why I am doing this and what exactly is it that I’m aiming for. A perky butt? Am I going to be happy when I get one? How will I know when it’s perky enough? How gay do all these questions sound? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Thankfully, talking to my friends and legends in the gym, has made me realise I’m not alone in feeling this way. We’re all going through similar struggles on the daily, with goals and priorities and diet. Oh, especially with diet. My god. Give me all the food. Every stretch session after the F45 Carrara 6.45am class we are talking about food. I swear to god it’s not on purpose – it’s partly because all I’ve consumed between 4 and 7.30am is an almost-too-ripe banana and a shitty instant black coffee and also partly because the street smells of food and everyone starts talking about what they’re having for breakfast. And then we all just feed off one another’s food fantasies until it’s suffocating and we can’t take it anymore. I AM SO DRAMATIC.

I don’t even really have a final point I’m getting to, other than to let anyone else out there who’s struggling that you are definitely not alone. That I see you and I feel you. Those amazing fitspo boys and girls of Instagram will forever awe me, but god knows how they do it.

For the record I haven’t given up, I’ve just stalled. I have no doubt this mood will pass and I’ll find a groove again, and then it’ll stall again. That’s just life.

I’ll keep smashing out my training, eating lots of greens, complaining about the cold, the soreness and the shitness. Then, when I get some downtime on the weekend I’ll reassess my goals.

Hopefully I’ll then be able to see clearly whether it’s worth me saying no to m&m chocolate blocks every bloody day at work.