I’m changing my goals for this coming week. My goal is to exercise every day, not obsessively or overly exercise, but to simply walk 15 – 30 minutes or do a set of strength training exercises with my resistance bands. Why? Because I am at a bottom right now in my motivation level to eat well and lose weight.
Can you believe it? Me, the one who used to write daily motivational posts (maybe the used to is part of the problem), me, the one who suggests to you that you don’t diet but instead make healthy, lasting lifestyle changes, and me, the one who was so enthused when I first started this blog about health and fitness in body and mind.
I do feel that at least by making the effort to exercise each day this week that this is a step in the right direction as far as getting back on track with healthy lifestyle habits. If you’ve been reading my weekly updates lately, you’ve heard about the struggles I’ve been having with my sugar addiction, but in the past I’ve also told you about how my series on loving yourself thin really helped me a lot, which it did. The thing is though, like with anything in life, you can’t just complete these actions (eat well, exercise, love and accept yourself as you are today, change your thoughts, etc.) once and expect that you’re done. They must become a part of your life.
This is exactly why dieting doesn’t work, because the mentality of a “dieter” is one of, “let’s just do x and y and get this weight off, then I can go back to eating z, z, and more z!” All of these changes need to be incorporated into a healthy lifestyle and done on a regular basis, whether that is feeding your mind daily with the positive, taking time each week to cook healthy meals in bulk so that you have meals to eat for the week, or getting out and walking each day.
So, since I’m not really feeling the motivation right now, I am committing to at least getting exercise each day this week. I’m not even setting extreme goals, I will succeed by getting in just 15 minutes of walking each day, a suggestion that I have written about many times here as a way to get started in making healthy changes in your life. Now I’m in a phase where I’m doing the same thing, even though I was at a point where I was doing much more. But, you know what? Now is now, and that’s the only place I can live. I need to stop looking at the past because it’s not helping me.
I must add that at first I was hesitant to write about my lack of motivation today (that means I’m not perfect! 😉 ), but the more I thought about it, I recognized the value in it: I know that there are 10’s of 1,000’s of other people out there that are feeling the same way. You want to change and eat better and exercise, but you’re not feeling motivated. I know that there are also people who can relate to my situation, being someone who was successful losing 43.5 pounds, feeling great, exercising regularly, strong and in shape, but who has since then regained and gotten out of shape. I don’t know which is worse: never having the success and not knowing what it’s like, or having the success and then going backwards like I’ve done.
Either way, I must believe that by continuing to give you these weekly updates, no matter how “bad” things may seem to me in my mind, that this can help others in the long run. How so? Because I know that I won’t stay in this low point, and that by getting back to my former self, others (maybe even you! 🙂 ) can say, “you know what, if JoLynn could get out of her slump, I know that I can, too!”
As far as my stats go, I gained 2 pounds last week. My current weight is 159. To some of you, you could think that that doesn’t sound like a lot, but let me tell you, on my frame it is. I’m only 5′ 4.5″ tall, and besides that, no matter what my weight I really feel like I can relate to people that are 100, 200, or more lbs overweight. It’s a big mental head game in my experience, the difference being that when you do get to a much higher weight, it’s easier for you to keep gaining because you’re more inactive.
No, I’m not at all making light of being extremely obese, I’m just saying that I can understand the mental anguish no matter what level of overweight you’re at. I can even relate a little to the other end of the spectrum (anorexia and bulimia) even though I don’t have any experience in that area. Only going on what I’ve read and seen in documentaries, those are eating disorders that are strongly tied up in the mind, which is where I know that much of my issue is right now.
I hope that what I can share with you here can help if you are also struggling with your motivation to get healthy and fit. I am by no means giving up, but more so am surrendering to my lack of motivation at this time. Also, I refuse to criticize myself for overeating for where I’m at because that will only make matters worse. Oh, and I did get in my walk today. 😉
If you’ve been in a motivation slump when it comes to weight loss and would like to share how you got out of it, please leave a comment!
