Motivating Monday: May 14, 2012: Making Habits Stick

Hi Everyone!

Happy Monday to ya!

I have decided to kick off each week with a motivational piece. I'd like to call it Motivating Monday, because if you are anything like me, you need a swift kick in the girdle right about now. Speaking of starting (and more importantly keeping up with) a new habit,today I want to talk about Habits. (Love the segue?) I'd like to focus on what happens once you make the change in habits, maintaining them.

With any lifestyle change, there is always the fear in the back of one's mind (or at least I have felt this way) in which certain questions begin to surface. Questions like 

• How long will this last?
• How long can I keep this up?
• Why should I even do this? It's never gonna last.

Changing your lifestyle to the improvement of your overall health and well-being is a very important step. It is too important to start this battle without the proper tools in this arsenal. And if you have ever tried to change anything in your life, you know that it is a battle.

So you have started working out, and/or you have started making changes to your diet, but you haven't committed fully, as you don't want to start anything that you won't see through. What can you do to make these newly formed changes stick?

Here are a couple of ideas. See how these hit you:

1.  Establish Importance: Why are you making this change? Are you doing this for yourself? Or are you doing this for someone else? If you are not doing this ultimately for yourself, chances are, you won't stick with it for the long haul. Ultimately, you must have your own conscious buy-in for any new changes to become a long-term way of life.
2.  Do It For A Month: Got 30 days? Experts say that 30 days of consistent behavior is all that is needed to see a real change in habits. Does 30 days seem too much to reach for?
   

Where Am I?

Wow.

Looking at the blog, I have really fell down on my blogging duties. I don't think that many people read this blog, but that's no reason for me to not do my job.

I have struggled with my weight pretty much all my life (since the age of 6). It has been a long journey. Along the way I have only managed to pick up a few things: more weight and a slew of health problems.

The one thing I have found along the way, is the way to get rid of the weight and ditch the issues associated with it: eat right and exercise. Sounds easy, right? Well if you are reading this blog, chances are you know that it's not.

I have been guilty over the years of trying pretty much everything to quickly purge myself of these extra pounds. Needless to say, none of that has really worked.

So if I know the answer, the magical secret, the absolute way to get rid of this weight and get healthy, why don't I weigh a heck of a lot less than I do?

I have scratched my head over that one for quite some time. The answer that I have come to is that for something to change your life, it will be life changing. You have to commit to making those choices that are hard. You literally have to change the way you think about a lot of things. And this is a hard pill to swallow.

I have learned that I have to change my relationship with food. I have to expect more from myself, but be able to accept less. I have to be willing to make small changes and I don't have to do them all at once. Small is better. Slow is best.

I am rambling a bit I know, so let me tell you about a conversation I had with a very dear friend this week.

This friend is doing this hcg diet with injections and very limited caloric intake. I read the instructions for this diet and God Bless her, because I know that I couldn't do it. She was telling me about it and asked if I wanted to try it. Because of the myriad of things that are wrong with me, I don't even attempt to think about these things anymore. While she and I have a lot of things similar in our respective situation, this is not for me. The more dangerous thing about this plan for me, though, is that it does nothing to address the issues that have plagued me my whole life. This does nothing to address the cause for my "situation". I have to change the way I eat, move and breathe and more importantly, how I think about all of them. I will be right back here or worse if I don't deal with these causes and triggers.

As my mom has told me most of my life, "You didn't wake up fat and you won't lose it in the same time frame either."

I wish my friend the best of luck. I know that she will be very successful on this because she is very dedicated. I hop that this works for her and gives here everything that she dreams of because she definitely deserves every last piece of happiness.

For now, though, I will take where I am and see where I can get.

Until next time.

Progress

Well, it has been over a week since I posted last.

No huge changes, as yet. I am just trying to navigate through this with as much sanity as is possible. I have pretty much realized that until I move (and have a REAL kitchen), that I am going to have to slow step it.

Tuesday, I went to my first water aerobics class. I haven't really exercised in a while and I wanted to start with something that would be as low-trauma as possible (and I am moving in the next two weeks, so I have to save my back).

It was great! Robyn, my wonderful hair stylist, teaches water aerobics all over town. She has a class in the evenings on Tuesdays and Thursdays and she told me I could come try it out.

I did. It was wonderful. It was so laid back and I could feel the workout. I didn't feel judged by anyone else there and it was fun. An added bonus- ABBA music was playing :)

Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't all a walk in the park (or a swim). My heart rate got up there. Usually, when I workout, I am constantly glaring at the clock, waiting for it to be over. I really didn't pay attention to the clock in this class.

We worked everything. Abs, legs. arms... It was truly a whole body workout.

After it was over, we got to sit on the side of the pool and enjoy the water jets. It was so relaxing and a nice treat after the workout.

I signed up officially yesterday. This is going to be my starting point. I have been approached by another friend about playing tennis some and I think I am going to do that too.

I am trying a new approach with all this. I want to look forward to exercising and I think in order to do that, I need to take a new angle. Instead of exercising as a chore, I am going to come at this as if the exercise is more of an afterthought. The activity is my motivation.

I have started to eat breakfast as well. For the last three days, I have ventured down to the cafeteria. All of my choices have probably not been the best, but I think that starting the day off with a more substantial meal (more so than a nutri-grain bar of fiber-one bar) is helping to keep my appetite in check.

It's really been a low stress week, so I have been able to better listen to my body and eat when I am hungry, instead of eating for the sake of eating. Sadly, I am very much an emotional eater. I eat when I am happy and I eat when I am not happy. I am trying to maneuver within that middle ground in order to maximize my efforts.

So far, it seems to be working. I am down to 240.8 lbs. (My weight does fluctuate somewhat, so we shall see). When I step on the scale, I like to think that that will be the last time that I weigh that much ever. It's the last time I will see those numbers when I step on the scale. I live in the real world and I know that especially when I start ramping up my efforts, and introduce strength training, that this may not always be the case.

Regardless, at least I know I am headed in the right direction.

Until Later....

B ;)

The Beginning

Finnegan- begin-again....

Today, I think, it finally dawned on me. I am never going to wake up and just be the person that I want to be, physically or emotionally, without taking some significant steps.

I have been waiting for the day that I feel I am ready, the day that "it's gonna work", the day that I can fit 4 extra hours or some extra energy in somewhere, they day that I have realized, that will ultimately never come.

I don't want to go on a diet. I don't want to exercise. I don't want to count calories or servings or have to think about the food that I eat, or the quantity. I don't want to weigh 245 pounds. (Never thought you would see a woman divulge her weight...lol)

I do want to stop taking 10 medicines a day. I do want to wake up every morning and not feel like a bus has hit me. I do want to sleep through the night without snoring. I do want to be able to walk up to my apartment without being out of breath. I do want to enjoy life. I do want to stick around for a while and enjoy the wonderful people in my life.

I guess the things I want to do outweigh the things I don't.

And there it is. There is the small piece of truth that I will have to use as my "muse" to forge ahead in this quest, because honestly, there is not much else. I have enough energy to get to work, and work for eight hours. I go home and that's about it. And that's just not living.If you have known me for any length of time, you know that my weight has been an issue for almost all of my life. Many people have offered me wonderful tips and hints, but as one of the few lessons I have learned over the years, until someone is ready to deal with a problem, the best thing to do is to love them and pray for them.

I hope you will do that for me. That's what I need the most right now. That's what it's gonna take.

As for this blog, I am not sure what shape it will take. I don't know if it will become a "tips and tricks" forum, or a "this is where I am right now" place, or just a place where I can express myself. I imagine it will become something of a mix of that.

Whatever it will be, I hope you will come along. I sure could use some company for the ride.

B ;)