Surprise!

Kathy, Lauren and I have been going to a class at our gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is a boxing class but it is a circuit, and you do all sorts of core exercises and shoulder and back as well. I got the greatest surprises last night. There were two stations that as he was explaining them, all I could think is I won't be able to do those two. One of the few traits I have that I like is I will always always always try. I never, within reason at least, determine I just can't and won't even give it a shot. So when I got the first station, I was absolutely shocked that I could do it! And pretty good too! So the second one I was worried about was 3 stations down the rotation and by the time I got to it, I was pretty gassed. I was even more certain I was not going to be able to do it now. But like I said, I will ALWAYS try. I once again not only was able to do it, I was pretty good at it!! All in all, Tuesday was a great day.

Numbers

Tomorrow, I start tracking some numbers I've been ignoring lately. I had a BP issue at the doctors office on Tuesday, but I hadn't had my meds for a week either. And my blood sugar is going to start being more of a priority.

I'm seriously stoked to get going back at this again with that one med gone!

Decisions

There are many aspects of my ife where I depend on others, so I don't have complete control of the total equation. But the one thing that I always have control over is the decisions I make.

One of the things that I do have complete control over is the decisions I make with regards to my health and nutrition. I decide what goes in my body, I decide how committed I am to working out and staying generally active. That's really all getting shape is,  series of good decisions. Put down the fast food, fire up the stove. Quit buying Little Debbie and start buying protein bars. Quit hitting up the peanut butter and jelly for an evening snack and hit the Kashi GoLean cereal. Stop reading the Facebook on iPad in the morning and evening and hit the gym or walk the block. Don't send the kids after things for you, walk and get them yourself. Decisions, decisions.

For the last 3 days, I've been concentrating on a theme. I'm stacking up good decisions one on top of the other. This weekend alone, I have taken food off my plate when Kathy made it, I've skipped cookies at church, I had a child's burger at BK instead of a double whopper. I set the alarm on my phone for 4:40 in the morning.

I'm off one of my blood sugar meds now, and by all rights, I should start seeing the results of working out now as as I eat reasonably.

Mental Preparation

This week has been about mental preparation. I have addressed some habits and mental states that I have been dealing with by basically praying for help and stacking up good choices on top of each other. But tomorrow starts the physical aspect of the journey. I'm setting my alarm for 4:40 again and starting to add up days in a row working out. Even though I hate selfies, I am going back to posting those. I'm also going to start physically writing down my plan for the week and crossing the days off as I complete them. I had a friend give me that idea last week and he is kicking butt, so it must work!

Stop Talking About It

I'm done talking about what I've done and what I want to do. From now on, I'm doing it then I will talk about it. #shutupandance

Starting With Hope, And Keeping The Hope Alive

I just came off a really good three months of eating well, exercising often, and being more active generally. And all that got me was 3 pounds lost and no inches lost. Granted, I was in better shape, but that ceiling is coming pretty quick if I can't start getting weight off I think.

So I was just sitting here in another re-boot phase and thinking. Hope is not so hard to come by. I think the idea of a better you is enough to get any endeavor off the ground. But man, keeping hope alive is a delicate balance. For example, take my situation now compared to my situation in 2010-11. I had hope, and I took off with exercising and eating right,etc. I saw weight coming off, and that bred more hope. Each pound gone, every shirt size you go down, it builds on itself. But how do you build hope on nothing?

I am working on new hope. I am going to the doctor next week and attempting to see if the medicines I am on are holding me back maybe? Maybe seeing if they can send me somewhere to get the process jumpstarted. That is my newest hope. I don't need to lose 3 pounds a week, but I need to see some kind of noticable progress to keep hope alive.

Partial Success Is Still Success

I have not made any New Year's Resolutions at all. New Year New Me is a terrible idea I think. You get all these lofty ideas about how this is the magical moment in time that you will become all you ever wanted to be. I call BS in the highest regard. You will not be able to sustain the "New Me" wholesale changes for the entire year, because they are almost always too lofty. The human will is resistant to change, and it is most certainly resistant to wholesale change. So let's say you are uber good and manage to go 2 months with all your resolutions,and that is being super generous. Most folks are done by the end of the week and even more by the end of the month. Then that one little slip happens in one of your resolutions. It may not even be a big thing. Maybe it is as small as say having a mini candy bar out of habit. What happens next? I know personally, that would lead to complete meltdown. And despite the fact that not eating sweets was only one of my resolutions, I would see that as a complete failure on my part, and backwards I would go, with my resolve unraveling.

Here is the sad thing, I was successful for X amount of time, but I didn't count that. Only the failure counted. That is the focus, I failed. But here is the things I have come to realize. Partial success, it's still success. You changed for that X amount of time. You showed yourself that it is possible. It won't be seamless, but it also isn't impossible. If you were good for a week, but slipped up, yeah it sucks, but hey, have you ever been good for a week before today?

I have been struggling with getting my momentum going, and so I have been in deep thought about why I was so easily motivated in 2010-2011. I still can't figure out why I was for all intents and purposes, flawless in that time period. But while debating how to get back there, it dawned on me, I don't have to. I need to focus on the present and what possibilities the future holds. So here is where I am. I set out to change several things about my eating habits a while back. Some I have been good at, some are spotty, some I have failed miserably at. But I have spent time being successful in all of them, and like I said above, that alone shows that it is possible for me to succeed at my goals.

What is the secret to moving forward? I don't know exactly, but I am going to give this a shot. Take for example the bane of my existence, my seeming inability to end the snacking at night. I have managed on two occasions to make it two nights in a row without snacking after supper. But I failed right? No, I just didn't have long term success, I had partial success. My plan moving forward is to rather than give up and keep on snacking after supper, I now have a new goal. To not snack after supper for 3 days in a row. It isn't much, but babies don't start walking in one day, now do they?