I just wanted to quickly mention something about the I AM WORTH MORE CHALLENGE- while it's totally cool to just skip your own weigh in day (meaning we don't have to all skip the same day) I did think it would be cool if we all posted our post it note covered scales on the same day! Soooo the official day to post the pic of your scale will be MONDAY, FEB 22ND! I can't wait- it will be an empowering moment fo sho.
Alright, on to the 4th installment of what I have deemed the 4 Pitiful Pitfalls: the hurdles that everyone encounters and must overcome in the quest to lose weight for the long term. The 4th Pitiful Pitfall that causes many to give up on their goals is: When Life Throws you a Curve Ball and things get Shaken Up.
If you've been on your journey for at least a month you can't deny that there is definitely a schedule and regiment that plays a part in making you successful. We've all heard the phrase and experienced it's truth: "If fail to plan you're planning to fail." Changing your life takes hard-work and determination and when we finally experience that day when it feels like it isn't becoming AS hard and you may just be getting into a groove with healthy eating and excercise it really is a great feeling; I mean obviously we want to break old habits and make new ones- which requires some sort of consistency.
BUT... then life happens. It would be great if once we found our "groove" if life would just let us do our thing but we all know that isn't realistic. On my 2 previous attempts at losing weight life threw me some curve balls and interrupted the flow that I had gotten myself in and I just gave up because I felt like ... the stars were aligned against me or something! Doesn't this happen to all of us? You've been loving the gym and working out like a beast and then money gets tight and you have to cancel the membership and workout at home and you just feel like giving up. You and your friend have been working out together and holding each other accountable to make it to the gym every morning and then she decides she can't make it anymore and you find yourself slowly slipping away from the gym to. You and your family are selling your home and it just feels like your life is in dissaray with boxes everywhere and you wonder if maybe you should just wait until things "settle down" a bit more until you can give this your full attention. Um... WAKE UP CALL: Things will never settle down and they will always be changing. You can't hang your healthiness hat on some fixed situation because then as soon as that situation gets shifted everything will fall apart.
We have got to learn to adjust our healthy lifestyles within the ever changing context of life. Again, when you've decided that failure is not an option you have no other choice then to react to life's curve balls with a re-evaluation of where you are what you CAN do and then DO IT.
Think about Tricia over at Endurance Isn't Only Physical; this girl has lost over 100lbs and has become this running fanatic training for some pretty amazing races when all of a sudden- boom- she gets a fracture and is can't run for 6 weeks. Now some of us would become SO upset after all of the hardwork we had put in and just give up and eat out of revenge or dissapointment. NOT TRICIA- she took the hand that was given to her and looked at the positivel- while she may not be able to run she found out she could work on weight training something that she had been neglecting. She had a choice whether to just throw in the towl or re-evaluate where she was, looked at what she COULD do, and is doing it.
This week I was completely snowed in and hadn't made it to the gym even once. I was so mad about this and there was a voice in my head saying..." look at you, this is just a start to a downward spiral, blah blah blah". My situation changed, I went from being able to work out 5x's a week to being house bound- but I took it as an opportunity to rest and as soon as I was able to hit the gym for the whole week (last night) my butt was there!
Don't allow this Pitiful Pitfall of life changing to cause you to throw in the towl! When life throws you a curve ball catch it and throw it right back. Failure CANNOT be an option.
Peace and Love!