Motivation can be a bitch some times when it comes to the exercise and dieting stuff. I’m not miserable by any means and I kind of enjoy all the exercise in general. Sometimes? Sometimes you just have one of those mornings when you wake up and you just don’t want to do it that day. Everybody does it, so I’m not really ashamed of it. So far, I’ve been successful on pushing through those moments and making myself do it regardless.

At times, the fix for these moments is as simple as looking where I’m at now and where I want to be and realizing that this guy isn’t going to lose itself. Other times, it’s just a matter of rote habit that makes me get up there and ride that bike at 6am. Sometimes, it helps just to look at the whole picture and see where I’ve been to get a feel on just how far I’ve come. Thankfully, since I log all my exercise in Fitocracy, these numbers are pretty easy to find.

This morning, I had no problem getting on the bike, but I slept for crap the night before so I was feeling kind of mopey about it all before heading off to work. (No worries, all is still well. I’m down 35lbs as of this morning’s weigh in!) With it being Monday and all, I figured it would be a good idea to check in on my total mileage on this little adventure to perk me up a bit.

Going through my logs, I can now verify that I started this whole journey on February of this year. February 8th to be exact. We had a crazy warm end to the winter with temps in the 80′s in mid March, so I was able to get out more then as well. Last Fall, I bought an exercise bike off of a neighbor for a mere $5 and getting it out of her house, so that’s been my weapon of choice this time around.

For the exercise bike, as of today I’ve covered 335.7 Miles! That one was pretty surprising to me, I honestly didn’t think it was quite *that* much! I also know from looking at the stats that I’ve gone from doing 5.2 miles in 25 minutes on the bike to 7.2 miles in 25 minutes on the bike every morning. This stat I knew was improved, but I wasn’t quite aware that it was 2 miles worth of improvement!

For the walking, I’ve covered 88.5 miles! This has all been outdoors as I don’t have access to a treadmill. (Yet.) I know that I’ve blown this figure out of the water in past years/bouts with weight loss as walking was my weapon of choice. This time around, I was getting a lot of aches and soreness in my hips and thighs, most likely due to my weight, but this is improving. I kind of prefer the bike though, because as I said last week….I get to watch TV! That’s kind of fun. I was walking at lunch every day here at work through February, March and April, but it’s getting too warm and nobody wants to sit next to me after I’ve been sweating for an hour.

So, this is my mental pick me up for the week, realizing just how far I’ve traversed since the beginning of February. While this may sound like bragging, it’s not so much. Yes, I am damn proud of the improvements I’ve made and such. But, sometimes everybody is going to need a motivational boost to keep going. If your’e taking a similar journey as myself, this is just sharing one method of how I keep myself pumped up to keep fighting the good fight.

Note: For anybody that’s wondering, I started weight training two weeks ago to go along with all this cardio. It’s fun, it hurts like a mofo. But, I’m doing it. I can detail that in another post if anybody’s interested.