So I decided, in my infinite wisdom, to reward myself with a week off after running my last 5km race. Not quite sure why I figured I *deserved* a reward because I didn't beat my personal best, but I guess combined with it being that time of the month, and a strong craving for crap food seemed to make me fold like a house a cards... which obviously didn't take that much effort. During my week off I ate badly a few times which caused some weight gain, and I didn't exercise at all which caused some anxiety, mainly because I kept looking forward to this week when the running could start again. I thought my body would be happy with the break, but I seemed to get more and more tired and my legs got more and more stiff, or odd feeling... not the same kind of stiff that you feel the day after you exercise... just weird.
I decided that unless I'm injured, I'm not going to totally cut out the running... I can reduce the kilometers /miles, but not stop cold turkey. It wasn't fun :( It wasn't fun like quitting exercise used to be. Quitting exercise used to feel like "Oh finally I can't stop subjecting myself to that stupid torture and just get back to watching TV, surfing the web or crafting". Now when I stop running, I think about running more, I read more about running online and in the running magazines I get, I make plans to register for more races, it was like I was becoming frantic about it and had to keep telling myself "it's okay, next week you can rack up the kms again" and that would help for a bit until I'd find another running blog or look at the photos from last year's Princess run. Totally strange and alien of me. Welcome to area 51 LOL
But to get to the main subject that I wanted to talk about: How do you build a fire... under your ass? And by that I mean this: at this point in my adult life, I know how to eat, I know how to exercise, I know what to do. The big thing that is hit or miss is the fire, the burning desire to succeed. It seems dumb to continue to *abuse* myself with another chocolate bar or bag of chips because that instant gratification only adds pounds to my ass and is counterproductive. I know this. I've read countless articles and blogs and books about all this stuff and *I KNOW* but why do I keep sabotaging myself? This is a question that is universal, I see so many people struggle with this, especially women. It shouldn't be gender specific, but it seems to be. Scientifically they say women are made to carry more fat, men have more muscle by default, blah blah blah. Yes, we know this, and I'm pretty sure it's true, because I've seen it in my own household.
I guess what I'm trying to do is get to the part of my brain that needs to not only have that fire lit, but to keep it burning and burning really hot. I am very proud that I've continued my running for this long, and amazed that I haven't stopped that like so many other things... so movement is possible, once you find an activity that you love. So how does one find an accelerant for that fire? How do you keep it white hot? I tell you, if I could find the answer to that I'd be frigging rich AND skinny LOL
In the massive amounts of reading I've done, most experts say that you've just got to want it. Um, yeah, I'm pretty sure most of us want it really bad... sometimes desperately so for health reasons among many others. But allow me to get a bit whiny here for a moment: How the hell do you keep the momentum of wanting it really bad and working for it so hard when it takes so fricken long? Move the Biggest Loser and stuff like that out of your mind for a moment and try and figure out how us mere mortals with jobs, families, responsibilities can achieve this, how can we compete? How do we win against ourselves?
It's not easy, that's for damn sure. Sometimes I feel like an Amazon warrior, fighting against all odds, and just hacking away at the same opponent for days, months, years. It's kinda exhausting, but you can't give up, because if you do, that opponent will win, you'll gain back the weight plus more, get more health problems and die early. We all know this, but I keep making the same mistakes. Maybe it's because I can't see the enemy as something tangible, or as an actual immediate threat. We all seem to think "oh, I'll do it later, I've got lots of time" It takes a lot to scare us into getting healthy....
I think about when I work on do it yourself reno projects.. I usually tackle those until they are finished and really go at it for hours and hours. Hell I remember this one time I moved into a new apartment and unpacked my whole apartment, got all the boxes out, cleaned the bathroom/kitchen, placed all the furniture, put up drapes and had absolutely everything done by midnight... I went so long and so hard at it, that I got a nose bleed. I know, insane in the membrane.... So how come I can't bring that kind of desire and determination to the weight loss thing for any length of time? Maybe if I thought of myself as a reno project that it would go better LOL
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