Who the hell is Randy Newman? Apparently he sang this song. Whatever Randy, the only song I’ve got in my head is The Message by Grandmaster Flash. Anyhoo, that’s not what’s important here. I wanted to take a few minutes out from wiping my new MAC foundation out of my eyes (seriously they won’t stop streaming?) and write about a few things I’ve struggled with recently. Boo hoo. Nah not really at all but they have been getting under my skin.

Let’start with the main one: plain bloody confusion. Does anyone else scroll through Instagram or Facebook or magazines and look at the people working out, posting pictures of twenty healthy meals a day, rock hard abs and sweaty selfies? Do you look at them and think “but I’m sitting at work trying not to eat all the food I brought with me in one go… I’m not in the gym going mental on the treadmill or the bench press? Am I failing at life? Is this why I haven’t lost twenty pounds? Will I ever be worthy?”

I was literally finding myself in a little vortex, spinning around and around, surrounded by smoothies and protein bars and weights and workouts and transformation Tuesdays and aaaaaaaaaaaargh. So I’ve decided to take a little step back from it all. Get some reality into my line of sight. After all, we are NOT the same. I work Monday to Friday (pretty comfy hours compared to some people!) and sometimes I want to eat a baguette or drink a goddamn latte. Ok? YES! It is totally ok thanks. So why am I telling myself it’s not ok? That I should be eating “clean” 24/7 and training twice a day every day? My god. I’m getting stressy just thinking about it all.

I’m rambling. I made some notes before I started writing this post. Here are my bullet points which I will then try and explain:

• Listen to your body
• Get a routine
• Don’t feel sorry for yourself
• Be patient
• Social Media isn’t real
• My body hates alcohol

Ok – I feel better now. Bullet point number one. Sometimes we are genuinely really tired. If this you, don’t try and smash a massive workout. I’ve felt exhausted for the past few weeks but couldn’t figure out why. After a week or so of listening to my body I think it was fighting a cold/flu/virus type thing and it needed some time to kick it’s butt. So instead I went swimming every day, did full body resistance workouts, restricted my calories and told myself to man up. How very clever of you Cat! Well done! YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER TWAT. Once I STOPPED trying to ruin my immune system and faced a few days of rest I came back kicking and I’ve been in the gym every day this week and feel great for it. Sometimes you need a rest. Take a bloody rest.

Before I forget my new mantra is as follows…

How good is that? Brilliant.

Ok next bullet point about a routine. I am sloooowly finding my new routine. It goes like this: 6am get up and sort shit in the flat like laundry and dishwasher, go to the gym at 6:30 and do either weights or HIIT or some cardio, come home and shower and prep my breakfast, walk the 2.5 miles to work, work, walk the 2.5 miles home and either do something fun or just chill and have dinner and earlyish night. This works for me. It means I get enough rest, I eat good food, I get my training in and I don’t overdo things. Find what works for you. Not the people on Instagram. What works for you?

Bullet point 3. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. This ties into bullet point 1. Being physically exhausted is very different to hitting the snooze alarm. Sometimes you have to have a short sharp word with yourself and say “listen up – you’re being a lazy shit – get out of bed and go for a walk, a run, a swim, lift something… just do ANYTHING – NOW – GO ON – MOVE!!!”. I have a bad habit of feeling sorry for myself. It’s ridiculous. Go look at people with disabilities smashing their goals then wise up.

This is my most important bullet point. Patience. It takes 13 hours to build a Toyota and 6 months to build a Rolls Royce. Apply this to your health and your body and your training. It takes time. Loads of time. I have wasted months recently with inconsistent training. Smashing 8 workouts in one week and then doing F**K all for two weeks. Dumb and gets me no where. When I was super lean that was a result of EIGHT MONTHS training and clever eating (and some periods of mild eating disorders FYI). I am no longer super lean and it is my own damn fault. Stay consistent. Just keep doing something. Don’t sack it off because you can’t see anything happening. LISTEN TO YOUR OWN WORDS CAT.

We have already discussed social media. Yes fine use it for some motivation. It’s good for that. DO NOT GET SUCKED INTO IT THOUGH. Do your routine. Eat the food that’s healthy for you, that YOU enjoy and keep doing it. Do stuff you look FORWARD to doing. Don’t like the gym? Go swimming. This is working wonders for a friend of mine. She loves swimming and she is doing it consistently. Oh and by the way… remember… the people you follow on Instagram generally only post the stuff they want you to see. Think about that for a second. Do you think I posted the dominos I had on Sunday? Nope. I sure as hell posted the healthy food I prepped on Monday night though….

Lastly…. and this is a bitter prosecco flavoured pill for me to swallow. After months of telling myself it’s one thing or another the reality has hit home. My body HATES alcohol. Not just “bad hangover” hates it. But makes me feel miserable for days, messes up my digestion for days, makes me lazy and moody style hates it. So – I am going to try and steer clear of it for a while. I know. People have real issues with this and say it’s boring and bla bla bla but at the end of the day you do what makes you happy.

So – there’s a little rant! Maybe it makes sense for some of you. Maybe it doesn’t. I hope it does. It can be hard work, you get down and sad because you ate some ice cream (or a whole tub if you are me at home on Sunday… yes after my dominos – oops) but life goes on and in reality that shit doesn’t matter. Just don’t do it every day. *thumbs up*.

I’m going to try and get my health and fitness into a consistent state rather than “yeah let’s do an ironman!” or “yeah let’s weigh out every single oat that goes into our proats!”. That shit, for me, isn’t long term achievable….. let’s find out what is….

MASSIVE REAL LIFE NOT INSTAGRAM LIFE HUGS. C xxx