Friday, April 11, 2014

Dear Scale....

"Dear Scale, we need to talk.  It's nothing personal but we need to break up.  It's not me...it's you."  

The other night my son decided to join me during my workout.  I love when this happens because it shows that what I'm doing is actually working.  I want my "journey to health" to benefit me and my babies.  I've spent most of my life being overweight and unhealthy.  Naturally, I want better for them.  I want to instill a love of exercise and being active while they are young so they don't have to deal with all the baggage that comes along with being obese.  

Unfortunately, the example I am setting isn't always a good one and I don't even realize I'm doing it until it slaps me in the face.  After we finished working out, my 8 year old son ran into the bathroom and weighed himself to see if he lost weight.  A child should NOT be worried about how much they weight.  I've always told them that it is about being healthy and not being skinny.  That Mommy was working this hard because she wanted to be a healthy person.  I told him the number on the scale didn't matter.  What mattered was that he just did a workout and had fun doing it.  Of course, he looked at me like I was crazy.  I'm not fooling him at all.  Both my children see me weigh myself all of the time.  I'm obsessed with the scale.  I'm happy when the number goes down and depressed when it doesn't.  And heaven forbid it goes up.  Yikes!!  I realized at this moment that I definitely talk the talk but I don't walk the walk.

It's important to remember that our kids are always watching us.  They don't only observe what we want them to see.  They see EVERYTHING.  They mirror our behaviors and habits.  We don't realize how destructive some of those behaviors are until we see our little ones doing the same thing. Instead of just talking to my kids about being healthy and expecting them to just listen to me (like that ever happens...LOL), I need to set a better example.  I think it's time to break up with my scale.  Or at least limit our dates. :-)

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Minute 21

I admit it.  I don't always want to exercise.  There is always something else I'd rather do...read, watch TV, craft...anything but move.  Those are  the days when I reluctantly dress in my exercise clothes, put on the DVD and grudgingly start warming up.  Those first 20 minutes are torture.  I find excuse after excuse running through my mind.  

"I'm tired."
"I need to pay bills"
"I want to read."
"I'll do it tomorrow.  Yeah, in the morning, that's it."

All I have to do is shut off the DVD player and walk away.  No one will know.  It will be okay.  Tomorrow sounds better anyway.   

But I keep going because I know that right around minute 21 something wonderful is going to happen.  Those endorphins kick in and I'm on fire.  I'm jumping and kicking and punching.  I'm smiling as sweat drips down into my eyes because I nailed that jump kick.  I'm running and doing air jacks.  Yeah, I can do this.  I'm breathing hard and working even harder.  Sweat pouring off of me.  And I feel amazing.  I feel alive and like I can do anything.

I love minute 21.

Life Get's In The Way

Days 4 and 5 of my 90 day TurboFire/ChaLEAN Extreme workout turned out to be unscheduled rest days.  Sunday was busy with family in town and a birthday party.  Monday involved kids, work and chores.  Normally, this kind of interruption to my schedule would send me for a loop.  I wouldn't be able to get back on track and it might be days before I started working out again.  It's that all or nothing mentality. One little slip, one deviation and I go off the deep end.

I'm trying to take a different tack now.  Go with the flow.  Realize that life happens and as much as I hate to admit it, I'm not always going to be in control.  This is probably one of the hardest things for me to do.  I'm such a control freak.  I want everything to go exactly as planned and when it doesn't I react badly.  I throw up my hands in frustration and walk away.  That isn't healthy in a whole lot of ways and I'm doing my best to change.  

Today was Day 6 and I did the workout from Day 4.  And guess what?  The world didn't end. 

Imagine that.  

 

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