The symptoms of sick faded as quickly as they came and I've been keeping on track. Having to rebuild all of my strength in these exercises since it's been quite a while since I've done most of them. I'm not someone who sees a new year as a new start though. If anything, Monday's are start days. Weigh in, measurement, new workout schedules-- Monday, Monday, Monday. It's the day we're all conditioned to think is the worst and I'm championing it as a day to renew.
A day to celebrate better health and shorter colds! A day to take stock in small victories and setbacks, to learn, readjust and approach it stronger.
If a new year, new you approach works, more power to you, but I find that waiting for an excuse to start, for any other reason than being too busy to fit in even a half hour workout, is a recipe for failure. Hey, failure is a building block though, right? If failure defeats you, you set your expectations too high. If it gives you the excuse to give up, then your first step is reevaluating your motivation. For some, 'beach body' is all they need. You may have these grand notions that 'family, health and confidence' are all it. Great. But when you're crying and sweating 15 minutes into a workout, injuring yourself because you overdid it or you get caught up in numbers and gained a pound on a week you worked so hard, are you still seeing the big picture? You need those short term motivators too. You need the grit to get through the workout, or the willpower to take a day of rest and still test those sore muscles the next day. You're going to need to forgive destroying your diet during an emotional eating cave in and get right back on it. Grand goals are great, but what are you telling your body in the moments when it's screaming all your doubts at you? These are moments where you have to touch base with a very selfish part of yourself, a part that you didn't know was there like all the new muscles screaming at you for being unused. That part is your drill sergeant, the one that knows you can do it, that doesn't care what you did yesterday or that morning or before you started working out. It's going to be your nurse when you need a break, your dietician when you slip up. It's going to be an amateur at first, learning right along with you. Feed that you so it can fuel everything else.
I have days where doubts creep in, almost cripplingly so. I feed the selfish part of me, so I can see those grander goals, the ones where doing for myself makes me the person I want to be for everyone else. And also myself, because I KNOW I mentioned how damn satisfying it is to watch my shape change. To feel it head to toe. To be able to do all of things I wanted to do before I forgot myself.
It's just a matter of finding the right kind of selfish.
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