January Motivation

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!