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Friday, October 21, 2011

Taking Responsibility

It's Friday, I know, I am supposed to write a favourite on my equine blog. Thing is, I have something else on my mind. It's not really horse related, but it's applicable, and it is relevant, and it belongs to both of my blogs. Maybe this tough-love entry is for my benefit more than anybody else's, but hey - maybe someone else can benefit from it, too.

My life has undergone a few drastic changes in the last couple of years - it started with my brain, that part of myself that suddenly decided to find worth and value in myself as a person - the part that realized that if I wanted something to happen, I was going to have to work toward making it happen myself. That doesn't mean that I haven't had help along the way from an excellent support structure but that does mean that I had to start the ball rolling, nobody else could do it for me. And it's a lot easier to get help to get to your final destination if you're already on the journey - don't forget that everybody else is on their own journey and had to find their motivation to get onto that journey on their own, they don't have the energy left to start you out. This falls into the category of "you can really only help those who help themselves".

This also falls into the category of "fall down seven times, get up eight." Even if you have a couple of false starts, it is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. They don't write news reports and history books about people who never had the strength to start the journey in the first place. When is the last time you heard about a guy who never waged a war against inequality?

What counts is that you don't let yourself down. If you're not happy with where you are, change it. This doesn't mean that you're going to go from homeless to rockstar in one day (unless, of course, you make it on some reality talent show, of course) - and I think that is the part where many people get frustrated and give up before they even begin. They get overwhelmed by the magnitude of their dream - they neglect to work out a road map so that they can measure their progress and consider anything except the realization of the goal to be failure. Start small. Make the small changes in your life that will add up to the big ones. Set small goals that make up the large goals. Celebrate the progress. Take it one day at a time.

Sometimes the progress is going to be just getting out of bed in the morning, looking yourself in the mirror and smiling, whether you feel like it or not.

Set a big goal today. Track the progress. Tell somebody - share it - make the good things happen for yourself. You deserve it as much as anybody does - maybe more!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Something good, something bad.

Wow, what a blur October has been already! Between getting sick straight off of my run and dealing with that (and out of exercise for about a week) and then the Thanksgiving long weekend, I have hardly had a chance to breathe, but I HAVE GOOD NEWS. I decided, last week, to start tracking my calories zealously. I used to think I had a good handle on tracking calories but I had fallen out of the habit. By logging everything via my Loseit Android App, I am running into situations where I am thinking before putting something in my mouth. Am I really hungry or am I eating because this is a time of day when I normally would? Am I really hungry or am I eating because I'm bored? Am I really hungry or am I eating because this is traditionally when I put something sweet in my mouth? It has really helped me to look at the way that I see food and the way that I want food. It's a little bit of a break through.

Speaking of break throughs, I was completely inspired by Bob Harper's comments on nutrition to his team on Biggest Loser last night! While I have never hidden to eat (save one time and I was so mortified by the fact that I had done it in the first place that I don't think I ever will again!), the idea of balancing those things that you love into a healthy lifestyle is what I have been getting at for a long time. You just need to learn to measure it out, balance it in to still get the results that you want. He also expounded on the loving yourself enough to make the right choices for yourself.

But anyways! Down to the REAL GOOD STUFF:

I lost 2lbs last week. I worked out a few times. I logged my calories even more than that. I asked myself if I was really hungry when I was reaching for food. I stayed in my calorie budget well. I FINALLY MADE SOME HEADWAY. It is nice to be reminded that you CAN lose weight when you put your mind to it, especially after a long period of slow gain (I still have 13lbs to go to get back to my lowest) or no movement, I think I needed something to show me that yes, I CAN lose weight, because I might have forgotten. These 0.4lb changes are NOT what I want to see anymore.

G is still waiting for his call for the navy. I secretly think that all of the extra time is actually a blessing in disguise for him to keep working at fitness so he will be that much more prepared for basic. It will suck if they call and he only has a week to tie up loose ends and leave, but that's probably a blessing in disguise, too. Kind of like ripping a band aid off. In the meantime, his body is changing like crazy.

And on to the scary stuff. A really inspirational friend of mine who has lost 200lbs posted a link to this on her Facebook group - an article about a study of women who were willing to trade years off their life to have the perfect body. How horrifying is that?

I don't know if it speaks for the pressures of the society we live in (don't want to work for it? have been told they can't succeed?) or the mindset that we have about the "perfect body" (that it all looks like the same thing and that EVERY body should be able to look that way - newsflash - they can't!), but it's pretty scary that these people (93% of which said they had negative thoughts about their bodies in the last week) haven't been empowered enough to love themselves, make the changes, and be happy with themselves at what is "perfect" for them - not by what is seen in a magazine! Scary times, folks. Scary times.