Okay Workout Wednesday only exists because of my friend Elisha, who runs a wonderful blog over at My Thunder Thighs. Elisha and I have been friends for six or seven years now and we have had similar struggles when it comes to our weight and weight loss. She has been a huge inspiration to me and we have big plans for the future.
Anyway she is the one that suggested/insisted that Wednesdays be the day I dedicate to writing about my workout journey.
I fall into a rather bad cycle of work outs. I get excited and I am all gung ho. I go to the gym five or six times a week, I track my food, I make good decisions with food-then something happens. I could be I get sick, or we go out of town, or we buy a house...anyway I fall off the wagon and I do it big time. Then something, usually the way my pants fit or the number I see on the scale, or how I look in a picture, sends me back into action and back to the gym. Where eventually something else happens...see the vicious cycle here? Right now I am well into a repeat cycle.
I make it to the gym four to five times a week right now, I try to be active on Saturdays making sure I get some type of work out in, even if it is just mowing the lawn, but I know just over the horizon is that new stoppage point. I need to find a way to over come that one, find a way to fight through the temptations for sleep or over indulging in food (my biggest vice). I need to find a way to talk myself out of talking myself out of going to the gym.
Let's face it, I know I will commit and stop and recommit again and again but what I really have to decide is what do I want out of the work out experience. Am I working out to lose weight or do I want to be strong and healthy enough to run a 5K with friends in September, or chase after my children in the park. I think once I can really truly answer this question maybe I will be able to put a stop to the cycle.
What do you to to avoid the slumps or to pull yourself out of one?
For me it's not so much, "Do I want to lose weight or do I want to be healthy?" It's more, "Do I want to be healthy more than I want to eat that cheesecake?" Sometimes the answer is no, and that's ok. We can't be perfect all the time. The only thing we can aim for is to be better than we were, to make better choices than we did.
ReplyDeleteThis feels cheesy to me, but I honestly feel like something has clicked on inside my brain/heart that is allowing me to move forward, even if I do take the occasional step backwards (i.e. today's lunch at Chili's!). Somewhere in my brain, the light came on, and I realized that I AM worth taking care of, and I CAN do it, and now I understand that without that light, without that belief, I would never succeed, no matter how many times I tried. Why would you take care of something/someone that wasn't worth it or didn't deserve it, even if it's subconscious?
But I am here to tell you, Nat, that you ARE worth it, and you CAN do it. Breaking that cycle is a matter of belief, and right now you believe you will fail again. But you are oh-so-capable, and oh-so-worth it. There is no one--NO ONE--who deserves a happy, healthy life more than you.
And as you know, I'm always right, so you should just start believing me now. ;)