Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Along the way from being an 18 year old who thought she was "pudgy" to an obese adult in mid-life, to becoming a 60 year old training for triathlon... the hills and valleys have been many. There are pitfalls along the way, and let me tell you about a few of them.
If you are at any of these stopping points right now, this blog's for you.
1. After your initial success at losing weight, you regain. Sigh. You feel like a failure. If you are here... read on. Do NOT give up.
2. In your second iteration, you cling to maintenance for quite a while, but then life gets WAY crazy, and you stop taking care of yourself. You think other things are more important (they may even be other people) than you are, and you'll "make up for it later". Yep, the pounds pile back on. If you are here... read on. Do NOT give up.
3. In your third iteration, you're doing GREAT. Then you get hit with an injury. You haven't figured out how to rehab, and you sink back into old habits of comforting yourself with food. Since you're not being active (and having your body give you feedback about the fuel), you just keep on... and you find yourself nearly back at you top weight ever. If you are here... read on. Do NOT give up.
4. In your fourth iteration, you learn how to draw a line in the sand and keep your balance. It may not be the active life of your dreams, but it is survivable. You still wish you could live your dreams, but this is not such a bad place to be. If you are here... read on. Do NOT release your dreams as "impossible".
5. You have kept on dreaming of the life goal you want. At your next opportunity, you assess, and come up with a plan. You take the first steps in that plan to make your dream a reality... and each day you do at least one little thing that will support that dream. You get your daily inspiration.
You rely on your "line in the sand", and you build from it. If you are here... congratulations... you are VERY close to reaching the next phase of your dream. Do not stop with dreaming.
If you are here... remember these things as you take those action steps:
- Keep your balance.
- Do not overtrain.
- Remember to recover and rest.
- Hydrate.
- Fuel the body with the nutrition that will support the life you WANT.
In the end... it's YOUR life. Live it to the fullest. Live it according to YOUR dream, not someone else's. Health is a precious resource. Preserve and protect it by taking care of YOU first.
Now go fill your place in the world! Because YOU deserve a good life, and the world deserves the best YOU that you can give it!
Just wanted to thank you for these great words of encouragement here!
ReplyDeleteThanks. I've always loved this one... written in 2013, that places it before my first Olympic distance triathlon, which was in June of 2014. That whole spirit of each seeming "failure" just being a way point on the way to the next success radiates from it, and re-reading it re-sparks it! Onward!
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