How does everyone else stay motivated to workout?
When I am at work and the gym is right downstairs and stress is an ever present… THEN it is easy to stay motivated… getting out of the office, working myself into a sweat and then going for a nice cool shower is a heavenly break and way more productive than going out to lunch or working through lunch (which happens at least one day a week plus my work from home day).
But some times (especially when I’m deep in the heart of the second pager week in a row and especially when I’m up several nights running because of the way that the database is behaving) it is so hard to get my butt up and going.
Now, I have to be able to make my Valentines Day deadline for 13.1…
But more important, I feel so much better now that I’m down 30 pounds (and holding) and I can breathe and I am feeling more and more human most of the time.
I look at my kids… and my sibling’s kids… and I think maybe I can be an example to them… if I can do this anyone can if they want it badly enough. It takes wanting it badly enough, though… and doing it because YOU want to not because someone else wants you to or tries to guilt you into it… because you have decided that you are worth the effort.
And you are worth the effort. If not you, then who!?!
You really can’t be everything that everyone else wants you to be if you aren’t everything you can be to yourself.
Yeah, I know, I have always rolled my eyes at that one, too. I have to do X for DS. I have to do Y for DD. I have to do W, Z and Q for DH. Work comes first because if I don’t do whatever it takes for whatever the current most important project I will “Be responsible for costing <the company> a lot of money” (that really is hooey for what it’s worth). House work, laundry, dinner, work, the other work, yard work… hell, with all of that and everything else, I’m lucky if I have the time to take a shower let alone take time for me (to read a book or take a walk or even just sit in the back yard).
It really is amazing, though, when you realize that your cholesterol is way too high and your not breathing right and that you hurt all of the time and that no matter how many hours there are in a day, the next day really will come with just as many and the one after that… and the one after that… and other people will work to consume all of them for you if you let them. Say NO to just one thing… folding that load of laundry… doing just one extra thing for the project that really isn’t your job…
Take just five minutes to walk to the end of the block and back.
Walk it for a week, every day.
FEEL the difference after a week or after two.
Feel how you notice the house at the end of the block that won house of the month and see how the weeds are really taking over their yard because they aren’t keeping up with pulling the weeds or trimming around the little fence any more. Notice the dragon fly that frequents the fence next door. Smell the heavenly smell of the people across the street when they start the grill every Friday for dinner.
Soon you will start to really look forward to those five or ten minutes alone time and you will start to feel better and you will come back to the “regular” part of life with a new outlook and things will seem to get done quicker than before.
After the first distance starts to become more effortless, add a little more distance (an extra house or two, the end of the next block). Notice the new things that you pass. Take an audio book with you as background, or listen to music that lifts your heart… or that calms your mind. Eventually you will start to look for music that helps you keep time to your walk or that helps you to keep up with keeping up.
After a few weeks, you may start to notice that you are feeling better, that you’ve lost a couple pounds or that your pants (or shirt…or whatever) fit a little more loosely.
Once you get there, you are half the way.
I don’t suggest that you actually go out and sign up for a marathon (or even a half marathon). That’s what I just did, but I set that as a goal when Trunk Monkey and my now ex-pet developer (She found a better job) guilt-ed me into going to the gym with them because no one ever went to the gym with them and then they quit going all together… they both said (eyes rolled) that they got me going and I was the only one that was still going and they would see me finishing a marathon one of these days… when they said that, then quit going, I figured I may as well set that as a goal and when I started to loose weight it started to become a goal that started to seem real.
start small
keep at it
and remember
if not you, then who…
A Figment Of Fitness 