Great advice
- Thread starter nova00
- Start date
Hey Susan:
I am glad I was able to help and that something I said today meant something to someone.
I was just re-reading your original post and remembered one other thing I wanted to comment on that i forgot to mention earlier:
You say you are "totally in awe of the dedication and motivation that all of you seem to possess. "
"Seem" may be the operative word here! When people publish themselves on a public forum, there's a tendency to present the best of themselves, because they are exposing themselves to public scrutiny. But you should know, that none of us here at the forums is perfect. Who hasn't been in a slump? Who hasn't gone through a day off from exercise that stretched into three and suddenly a month creeps up and you kick yourself when you realize how hard it will be to get back on that fitness journey back to optimum performance? You know, we all get de-motivated because we all have so much stuff going on in our lives and sometimes it wins over and we are not strong enough to prioritize our workout because our emotional reaction to the "stuff going on" is too strong. At least, this is what happens to me, a lot.
I've been an on-off exerciser for the last ten years that I have been an on-off grad student interpersing periods of study with periods of pregnancy and toddler rearing, and periods of straight full-time teaching. But I reached the point last year when I realized that the lifestyle I was leading was not sustainable on a long term basis, that my continually excesssively high stress levels were going to endanger my health if allowed to continue and that, well basically, I needed more 'me' time in my life, dammit!
So you say we all seem to have so much commitment and motivation, but I say, no, not always, and also, yes, we can reach that point when we've been down the unhealthy, unsustainable lifestyle roads and just didn't like our life while we were down that way, and so our strong motivation now comes from a keen desire to implement a fitness program that is a life's journey, not a momentary all-or-nothing attempt to lose some pounds. And because we just don't want to go back to where we were before, ever.
So, don't be hard on yourself if you find yourself slipping from the program every now and then: remember the "get free from rigid timetables" stuff I was saying earlier, but remember also, you have the rest of your life to perfect this journey, you will always be travelling this road, achievement is not measured on a daily or weekly basis but over the long haul. And it doesn't necessarily boil down to how many pounds you lost or how many pounds you now heft, but how much better you like living in the body you're in.
Susan, you're here, you're on the journey and you're taking care of you in little baby steps. You're doing great. Smile
Clare
(liking more each day the body I'm in....)
I am glad I was able to help and that something I said today meant something to someone.
I was just re-reading your original post and remembered one other thing I wanted to comment on that i forgot to mention earlier:
You say you are "totally in awe of the dedication and motivation that all of you seem to possess. "
"Seem" may be the operative word here! When people publish themselves on a public forum, there's a tendency to present the best of themselves, because they are exposing themselves to public scrutiny. But you should know, that none of us here at the forums is perfect. Who hasn't been in a slump? Who hasn't gone through a day off from exercise that stretched into three and suddenly a month creeps up and you kick yourself when you realize how hard it will be to get back on that fitness journey back to optimum performance? You know, we all get de-motivated because we all have so much stuff going on in our lives and sometimes it wins over and we are not strong enough to prioritize our workout because our emotional reaction to the "stuff going on" is too strong. At least, this is what happens to me, a lot.
I've been an on-off exerciser for the last ten years that I have been an on-off grad student interpersing periods of study with periods of pregnancy and toddler rearing, and periods of straight full-time teaching. But I reached the point last year when I realized that the lifestyle I was leading was not sustainable on a long term basis, that my continually excesssively high stress levels were going to endanger my health if allowed to continue and that, well basically, I needed more 'me' time in my life, dammit!
So you say we all seem to have so much commitment and motivation, but I say, no, not always, and also, yes, we can reach that point when we've been down the unhealthy, unsustainable lifestyle roads and just didn't like our life while we were down that way, and so our strong motivation now comes from a keen desire to implement a fitness program that is a life's journey, not a momentary all-or-nothing attempt to lose some pounds. And because we just don't want to go back to where we were before, ever.
So, don't be hard on yourself if you find yourself slipping from the program every now and then: remember the "get free from rigid timetables" stuff I was saying earlier, but remember also, you have the rest of your life to perfect this journey, you will always be travelling this road, achievement is not measured on a daily or weekly basis but over the long haul. And it doesn't necessarily boil down to how many pounds you lost or how many pounds you now heft, but how much better you like living in the body you're in.
Susan, you're here, you're on the journey and you're taking care of you in little baby steps. You're doing great. Smile
Clare
(liking more each day the body I'm in....)