Over the past two-and-a-half years, I've done nothing but make excuses. I'm done with making excuses.
I'm not just talking about making excuses for not exercising and not eating right; I'm talking about making excuses in all other aspects of my life as well. In my opinion, all other aspects of my life are greatly affected by how I take care of my body and how I take care of my body can be greatly affected by all other aspects of my life. Everything just works together and goes hand-in-hand in making me who I am and in helping me determine how I will live my life and the choices I will make.
But the thing is, it's all about choices. I can choose to let how I take care of my body affect all other aspects of my life, and I can choose to let all other aspects of my life affect how I take care of my body. This is where the whole "priorities" thing comes in. And that's where I failed about two-and-a-half years ago. Not only did exercising and eating right fall off the priority list, but so did everything else. I basically had no priority list; all I had were my own weaknesses and excuses. Those were my "priorities". Those were the things that I let determine how I lived my life and the choices I made. What a sad, sad way to live.
Those weaknesses, fears, and excuses that I chose to allow to control how I lived and control the choices I made were things like lack of self-confidence, my increased weight, pride, laziness, insecurity, inability to adjust well to change, fear, self-pity. These are all great excuses, right? But that's all they are. Excuses. And excuses are merely pathetic justifications for personal weaknesses which could be overcome if I made the choice to overcome them.
I am making that choice now. No more excuses. I need to throw all of my excuses out the window and face my weaknesses and fears head-on. Unless I do this, I will NEVER overcome these things and become stronger.
Some days, I wish the weight would just come off overnight. Some days, I wish I could just be done with it and working on maintaining rather than having to focus on losing. But if I could just lose it overnight, then I wouldn't have this experience of having to work and make sacrifices to lose the weight. I wouldn't learn anything. I wouldn't have this opportunity for growth and progression.
I'm so grateful for this experience, and I plan to take it and run with it. ...Literally.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
The Note that started it all...
The following is a Facebook note I posted on Saturday, April 2nd:
My mom posted a note last night (which I included at the end of this note) and it is exactly what I needed to read right now.
Ever since my surgery a month ago, I've put on most of the weight that I had lost during the couple of months prior. I've been tellin' myself for the past few days that, starting next Monday, I HAVE to get my butt back into gear, with both exercising and watching my daily calorie intake.
Around the beginning of 2009, I started putting on weight and it continued until I was 20+ pounds heavier than I've ever been in my entire life. 148 pounds is just NOT acceptable anymore, especially for a girl of my short height and young age.
I'm sick of being embarrassed about going places because of how insecure I feel about the way I look. I'm sick of not wanting to see old friends because I'm embarrassed about how different I look now. I'm sick of looking at pictures of myself from the past two years and wondering why I let myself get like this. I'm sick of looking at pictures of myself from between high school through 2008 and wishing I still looked that way. I'm sick of not wanting to go to church activities because I'm so unhappy with the way I look. I'm sick of not feeling the healthiest I could be feeling right now because, well, I'm not the healthiest I could be right now.
Most of all, I'm sick of wishing for that 123-pound body I had two years ago. It's time to get it back; it's time to work hard to get it back and to not give up. It's time to get the toned muscle back, the slimmer body back, and, most importantly, the healthier body back. I know I can do it; I just need to get it done.
I know I have the inner strength, the motivation, the determination, the willpower, the good reasons, and the ability to do it, but I'm gonna HAVE to push aside the laziness, the excuses, the insecurity, the procrastination, and the frustration in order to do it.
Anyways, here's the note I read, which my mom posted last night, that inspired me to put these feelings and frustrations that I've been having out there:
"After much contemplation, I have decided to go public with my journey. It's about becoming healthy. Losing weight will be a by-product of that journey, not the goal. I'm tired of being the fat exercise instructor. Hypocrisy has never been my thing, so at one point I even decided to quit teaching. But now I realize I should change the fat part, not the instructor part. My problem is not with my ability to exercise. I love exercise. My idea of a dream vacation is to go on a fitness cruise, where I could take as many classes in a day as I could breathe through. My problem is with food. Unlike other addictions, a person cannot live without food. I can't just move to a new town or find new friends who don't use food. I have to learn the art of control, which is ironic because I'm a pretty organized, controlled person otherwise. So, as I begin this journey, like any other kind of addict, I have to have no secrets. I begin personal training next week and will be posting my weight every week.In doing this, I have 2 goals: to become healthy again AND to maybe help someone else who is struggling in this same way."
P.S. - I love my mom. I'm pretty sure she's gonna write a book one day. =)
My mom posted a note last night (which I included at the end of this note) and it is exactly what I needed to read right now.
Ever since my surgery a month ago, I've put on most of the weight that I had lost during the couple of months prior. I've been tellin' myself for the past few days that, starting next Monday, I HAVE to get my butt back into gear, with both exercising and watching my daily calorie intake.
Around the beginning of 2009, I started putting on weight and it continued until I was 20+ pounds heavier than I've ever been in my entire life. 148 pounds is just NOT acceptable anymore, especially for a girl of my short height and young age.
I'm sick of being embarrassed about going places because of how insecure I feel about the way I look. I'm sick of not wanting to see old friends because I'm embarrassed about how different I look now. I'm sick of looking at pictures of myself from the past two years and wondering why I let myself get like this. I'm sick of looking at pictures of myself from between high school through 2008 and wishing I still looked that way. I'm sick of not wanting to go to church activities because I'm so unhappy with the way I look. I'm sick of not feeling the healthiest I could be feeling right now because, well, I'm not the healthiest I could be right now.
Most of all, I'm sick of wishing for that 123-pound body I had two years ago. It's time to get it back; it's time to work hard to get it back and to not give up. It's time to get the toned muscle back, the slimmer body back, and, most importantly, the healthier body back. I know I can do it; I just need to get it done.
I know I have the inner strength, the motivation, the determination, the willpower, the good reasons, and the ability to do it, but I'm gonna HAVE to push aside the laziness, the excuses, the insecurity, the procrastination, and the frustration in order to do it.
Anyways, here's the note I read, which my mom posted last night, that inspired me to put these feelings and frustrations that I've been having out there:
"After much contemplation, I have decided to go public with my journey. It's about becoming healthy. Losing weight will be a by-product of that journey, not the goal. I'm tired of being the fat exercise instructor. Hypocrisy has never been my thing, so at one point I even decided to quit teaching. But now I realize I should change the fat part, not the instructor part. My problem is not with my ability to exercise. I love exercise. My idea of a dream vacation is to go on a fitness cruise, where I could take as many classes in a day as I could breathe through. My problem is with food. Unlike other addictions, a person cannot live without food. I can't just move to a new town or find new friends who don't use food. I have to learn the art of control, which is ironic because I'm a pretty organized, controlled person otherwise. So, as I begin this journey, like any other kind of addict, I have to have no secrets. I begin personal training next week and will be posting my weight every week.In doing this, I have 2 goals: to become healthy again AND to maybe help someone else who is struggling in this same way."
P.S. - I love my mom. I'm pretty sure she's gonna write a book one day. =)
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