Usually January is a great month to get motivated, right? We hear all the ads for losing weight this way, or joining that gym, etc. And for us gym rats, we know that to be true...when we get to our preferred place to work out, and find that parking is at a minimum, and our normal location in our favorite class is taken by a "newbie".
January for me this year has been very de-motivating. Keeping a positive attitude has been extraordinarily difficult, but I am persevering (I hope!). One week after my emergency root canal, a nagging side stitch turned into appendicitis, with surgery just hours after diagnosis. Now, no core work or lifting more than 15 pounds for 6 weeks, though I can start doing low cardio this week. But for someone who's very existence can be based around when I get to teach next, I am finding a struggle to be motivated. I am missing my friends, missing the endorphins, missing the healthy feeling, while I am forced to let my body heal. A very different feeling than when I have had planned surgeries. I was mentally prepared (or so I thought) for the time off...not so this time.
So, to find my motivation, I need to look inward. I need to find that push inside to attain my goal. (I can count having my appendix taken out as weight loss, right? :-) I need to eat differently than I even had been when I was working out. Certainly less, but also a different approach, as well. My motivation has to be to continue my Weight Watchers work from the perspective of a normal everyday WW member position. Many of those people haven't been active in years, and taking on the food portion is their challenge, with the hope of becoming active at a later date. My choice now has to be to take their view, and just worry about food, and become active at a later date.
Sounds easy! It's not, sadly. But my motivation will be to get myself healthy and strong for when I can fully workout again, seeing my members happy faces, and to do that means I have to eat well and still take off the pounds. (With January being so crazy, I have not even weighed in since December, so I have no idea where I am at!)
But more than anything, my motivation is my supporters, my friends, my family. Everyone who has been so fantastic through all this, helping out with whatever I need! My heart is full, and I am truly humbled at the responses from everyone.
And in the end...it is just a few weeks, I will persevere and look back at myself and laugh (as I have many a time) at my dramatic take on it. I mean, really? Yes, Denise, you will live! And be better for it....besides, as my surgical paperwork said "The appendix is a useless organ"....so my body said get rid of it! DONE!
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Stop what you are doing right NOW!!!!
Well, the holidays are over, and things are starting to get back to normal. Everyone is heading to the gym with their New Years resolutions, and doing their best to eat better. We begin to find our way back to the normal life that happens for 10 1/2 months a year, before the world turns upside down for the holidays. And then....
Something happens to make you "stop what you are doing right now". I had this experience this week. A whirlwind, you might say. Started with taking my sister to the airport to send her to Guatemala for a week...that was the easy part. Then waking up Tuesday to find my father in the hospital (he's doing better now!), then going to what I thought would be a routine dental appointment, and having it turned into an emergency root canal with a specialist. What a good reminder!
It is so easy to get caught up in the day to day stuff, running to do this thing, taking the kids to their activities, doing things for everyone else. Sometimes, your body stops and says "Stop what you are doing right now!", and gives you no option but to drop whatever you are doing and deal with whatever is going on with it. In this case, my tooth decided that it was time for me to stop, and would not take no for an answer. Extreme pain will do that to you, along with the flu, or perhaps some other random accident.
These are good times to stop and say to yourself, and your body, "I hear you, and thank you for the reminder". The reminder being that we must always take care of ourselves before we can take care of anyone else. If we don't, that reminder will slam us in the forehead.
What does that mean for my motivation and your motivation? It means that we must learn to say no sometimes. It means that we need to get the exercise our body needs to not only stay healthy, but relieve stress. And it means we need to fuel our body with the right things. I have been eating without thinking about all the things I should or should not eat the last few days as I try to recover from this. But as my brain has cleared, I am renewed. My breakfast of two eggs, peanut butter on half a sandwich thin and milk will help my body to recover, and continue on my chosen path.
So, what are you motivated to do? Take a moment to remind yourself of your goals for this year (not a big fan of "resolutions", because very few are ever kept past the first week), and restart today. Every day is a new beginning. How will you begin today?
**Oh...and weight lost update next week. Weight watchers was closed on my normal meeting day during the holidays, so couldn't make it. Good news ahead, right? :-)
Something happens to make you "stop what you are doing right now". I had this experience this week. A whirlwind, you might say. Started with taking my sister to the airport to send her to Guatemala for a week...that was the easy part. Then waking up Tuesday to find my father in the hospital (he's doing better now!), then going to what I thought would be a routine dental appointment, and having it turned into an emergency root canal with a specialist. What a good reminder!
It is so easy to get caught up in the day to day stuff, running to do this thing, taking the kids to their activities, doing things for everyone else. Sometimes, your body stops and says "Stop what you are doing right now!", and gives you no option but to drop whatever you are doing and deal with whatever is going on with it. In this case, my tooth decided that it was time for me to stop, and would not take no for an answer. Extreme pain will do that to you, along with the flu, or perhaps some other random accident.
These are good times to stop and say to yourself, and your body, "I hear you, and thank you for the reminder". The reminder being that we must always take care of ourselves before we can take care of anyone else. If we don't, that reminder will slam us in the forehead.
What does that mean for my motivation and your motivation? It means that we must learn to say no sometimes. It means that we need to get the exercise our body needs to not only stay healthy, but relieve stress. And it means we need to fuel our body with the right things. I have been eating without thinking about all the things I should or should not eat the last few days as I try to recover from this. But as my brain has cleared, I am renewed. My breakfast of two eggs, peanut butter on half a sandwich thin and milk will help my body to recover, and continue on my chosen path.
So, what are you motivated to do? Take a moment to remind yourself of your goals for this year (not a big fan of "resolutions", because very few are ever kept past the first week), and restart today. Every day is a new beginning. How will you begin today?
**Oh...and weight lost update next week. Weight watchers was closed on my normal meeting day during the holidays, so couldn't make it. Good news ahead, right? :-)
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