Newbie: Restore messed up code from local or remote repository

Hello -- Extreme Git Newbie

I have a project that is checked into a local git repository as well as pushed to a remote repository.

Through misadventure I've managed to screw up my working code and want to restore what I had from my last commit on either the local or remote repositories.

So I blew away my messed up working files and tried:

git checkout git pull -f /path/to/remote/repos git fetch -f /path/to/remote/repos

None of the above did the trick. The two remote commands reported that everything was Already up-to-date! (even though I'd deleted a lot of local working files)

What am I missing?  How can I restore my previous state from last commit?

Thanks! Greg