On Finding My Motivation... & A Little Focus Too.
First and foremost... I know I've been M.I.A. But see, WHAT HAD HAPPENED was... I'm trying to focus. I suffer from what Elizabeth Gilbert describes as "monkey brain" in, Eat. Pray. Love. Where your thoughts are like a monkey swinging from one branch (thought) to the other and you can't get the damn monkey to stop swinging no matter how hard you try. Yeah, well... I had to tranquilize the mutha sucka once and for all. In order for me to do that, I had to develop some sort of tunnel vision. Which is already hard to do when you're a mom with 3 monkeys plus 3 more every other weekend and king Gorilla that can't go completely ignored.
But enough about monkeys... (See how quickly I lost focus there? Told you.)
Anywho... I've been focusing on my health, more specifically on losing weight. (No, this isn't a new year, new me thing y'all.) But since the thought of losing weight alone was never enough to motivate me to drop the 50+ lbs I've gained since having baby #1... I had to readjust my focus.
Even at my very best... I've never been 100% happy with what I saw in the mirror. That has to do more with correcting my mind than it does correcting my body. As a matter a fact, the happiest I could ever remember being with what I saw in the mirror was at 232 pounds... and that's because I changed my thinking. It wasn't until I changed my thinking that I lost 40+ lbs and stayed there for some time. It makes no sense to make a goal based on how I look physically when my body is worth loving exactly at it is now... I just need to work on that.
I also find it difficult to stay motivated when too much of my focus is on numbers. YES, I'm keeping track of what I'm losing because ultimately it's what I want to do. HOWEVER, I have a tendency of being hard on myself. I don't know if the 1-5 pounds I gained are from bloat or from gaining muscle and I sure as hell don't want to focus on the number so much that I get discouraged and quit. THIS has been my downfall all along and it wasn't until recently that I realized it was the reason I quit every single time. I'd get frustrated that I was putting ALL this effort into moving and fighting through pain to get this exercising crap done. I let my kid keep his Butterfinger for once. Seriously, in my world... food = happiness. ESPECIALLY when I'm down, or anxious, or depressed... or I dunno... pissed that I've given up all the sweet and tasty things that made my tummy happy and have ZILCH results!
Here's the thing... My tummy wasn't happy. (I have IBS... 'nough said.) I was full. TOO full. I was bloated. The heart burn was becoming a menace and I was in PAIN. Not just a little pain... ALOT of it. Pain causes you to be tired. Even when you don't WANT to be tired... which causes depression... which leads to MORE pain... and because food = happiness, I eat. I eat enough to fill whatever void it is that's causing to me feel this way. And after so long of eating my way to the bottom of those delicious white cheddar popcorn bags (quickly)... I know now that what I'm looking for, I'm never going to find in the bottom of a chip bag. Whatever it is that I'm doing... it's clearly not working. No matter how much my stomach aches... I'm never full enough. I'm not- happy.
A genius once said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Mr. Albert Einstein... that dude gets it right all the time. I'm completely insane. I have to make changes. Which leads me to another quote from one of my personal favorite geniuses of all time...
For the record, I never tried to shoot my husband (not the current one at least)... but you get the point. I'm focusing on making my mind happy. Aside from the obvious benefits of exercising and eating right and all those great feel-good hormones I'm producing... it's great feeling that I'm accomplishing something each day by doing this. Each workout that I'm able to push through despite being in a lot of pain is a little victory. F%#@ you Fibromylgia... You couldn't keep me down today. It's nice to feel like a bad ass for THAT reason as apposed to just feeling bad for downing an entire mug of ice cream. The difference in my mood and overall being when I don't move around is DRASTIC. I spent the last week and half home due to snow days and a nasty stomach flu outbreak in our house... I also spent my Saturday crying into a pillow. It. Makes. A. Difference. It WORKS.
I'm also starting to think of working out and eating better as a gift to myself. Looking at it from this perspective is helping me value myself more than I've been willing to for some time now. I mean, you wouldn't repeatedly give a gift to someone you didn't appreciate, right? I'm definitely finding the more I do this, the more I appreciate myself just as I am now. After all it's my big, curvy body that's doing the work- It's worthy of taking up as much space as it needs to do it. Not just in the gym...in the world in general.
Now that I have a better understanding of how my mind works since I'm not drowning my thoughts out with Pepsi. I've also decided that I'm NOT going to make eating certain foods completely off limits. I'm a foodie. Always have been, always will be. I'm just trying to learn to appreciate how what I put in my body makes me feel. It takes a little extra prep time compared to a drive thru window, but the better food choices are just as good. (Minus the guilt.) And while I've been trying really hard to drastically cut down on the sodium, sugar, portions and snacking (my absolute weakness)... it's also human nature to want what we can't have. It's built in our DNA ya'll. For the people who claim they rather indulge in a granola bar over a pint of your favorite flavor ice cream topped with a warm chewy brownie, you're LYING! I'm just learning that if I'm eating it every day, it's no longer "indulging"... it's just eating. You're not "indulging" in anything when you're just going through the motion of eating just to eat. It's nice to indulge once in a while and I intend on doing just that.
I refuse to deny or deprive myself of the occasional goody also because I don't like anyone telling me what to do. That's right. Don't tell me what I CAN or CANNOT have. No one judges what I SHOULD or SHOULDN'T be eating but ME. Even if it IS me telling myself, "DON'T eat that doughnut, Jess." I'm all like...
BITCH. Don't tell me what to do! I eat WHAT I wanna eat, WHEN I wanna eat it, OKAY!?...
I just don't want it right now.
But enough about monkeys... (See how quickly I lost focus there? Told you.)
Anywho... I've been focusing on my health, more specifically on losing weight. (No, this isn't a new year, new me thing y'all.) But since the thought of losing weight alone was never enough to motivate me to drop the 50+ lbs I've gained since having baby #1... I had to readjust my focus.
Even at my very best... I've never been 100% happy with what I saw in the mirror. That has to do more with correcting my mind than it does correcting my body. As a matter a fact, the happiest I could ever remember being with what I saw in the mirror was at 232 pounds... and that's because I changed my thinking. It wasn't until I changed my thinking that I lost 40+ lbs and stayed there for some time. It makes no sense to make a goal based on how I look physically when my body is worth loving exactly at it is now... I just need to work on that.
I also find it difficult to stay motivated when too much of my focus is on numbers. YES, I'm keeping track of what I'm losing because ultimately it's what I want to do. HOWEVER, I have a tendency of being hard on myself. I don't know if the 1-5 pounds I gained are from bloat or from gaining muscle and I sure as hell don't want to focus on the number so much that I get discouraged and quit. THIS has been my downfall all along and it wasn't until recently that I realized it was the reason I quit every single time. I'd get frustrated that I was putting ALL this effort into moving and fighting through pain to get this exercising crap done. I let my kid keep his Butterfinger for once. Seriously, in my world... food = happiness. ESPECIALLY when I'm down, or anxious, or depressed... or I dunno... pissed that I've given up all the sweet and tasty things that made my tummy happy and have ZILCH results!
SCREW THIS! I RATHER DIE HAPPY THAN HUNGRY!!! Nom, nom, nom...
BAM!!!
Here's the thing... My tummy wasn't happy. (I have IBS... 'nough said.) I was full. TOO full. I was bloated. The heart burn was becoming a menace and I was in PAIN. Not just a little pain... ALOT of it. Pain causes you to be tired. Even when you don't WANT to be tired... which causes depression... which leads to MORE pain... and because food = happiness, I eat. I eat enough to fill whatever void it is that's causing to me feel this way. And after so long of eating my way to the bottom of those delicious white cheddar popcorn bags (quickly)... I know now that what I'm looking for, I'm never going to find in the bottom of a chip bag. Whatever it is that I'm doing... it's clearly not working. No matter how much my stomach aches... I'm never full enough. I'm not- happy.
A genius once said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Mr. Albert Einstein... that dude gets it right all the time. I'm completely insane. I have to make changes. Which leads me to another quote from one of my personal favorite geniuses of all time...
I'm also starting to think of working out and eating better as a gift to myself. Looking at it from this perspective is helping me value myself more than I've been willing to for some time now. I mean, you wouldn't repeatedly give a gift to someone you didn't appreciate, right? I'm definitely finding the more I do this, the more I appreciate myself just as I am now. After all it's my big, curvy body that's doing the work- It's worthy of taking up as much space as it needs to do it. Not just in the gym...in the world in general.
Now that I have a better understanding of how my mind works since I'm not drowning my thoughts out with Pepsi. I've also decided that I'm NOT going to make eating certain foods completely off limits. I'm a foodie. Always have been, always will be. I'm just trying to learn to appreciate how what I put in my body makes me feel. It takes a little extra prep time compared to a drive thru window, but the better food choices are just as good. (Minus the guilt.) And while I've been trying really hard to drastically cut down on the sodium, sugar, portions and snacking (my absolute weakness)... it's also human nature to want what we can't have. It's built in our DNA ya'll. For the people who claim they rather indulge in a granola bar over a pint of your favorite flavor ice cream topped with a warm chewy brownie, you're LYING! I'm just learning that if I'm eating it every day, it's no longer "indulging"... it's just eating. You're not "indulging" in anything when you're just going through the motion of eating just to eat. It's nice to indulge once in a while and I intend on doing just that.
I refuse to deny or deprive myself of the occasional goody also because I don't like anyone telling me what to do. That's right. Don't tell me what I CAN or CANNOT have. No one judges what I SHOULD or SHOULDN'T be eating but ME. Even if it IS me telling myself, "DON'T eat that doughnut, Jess." I'm all like...
BITCH. Don't tell me what to do! I eat WHAT I wanna eat, WHEN I wanna eat it, OKAY!?...
I just don't want it right now.
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