My greatest struggle in life has proven to be knowing just how far I can really go.
And at the end of week 1, I stepped up onto the scale to see how I was coming along.
And something very unexpected happened.
I lost 4 pounds in my first week.
I don't know about other people's bodies or their abilities in fitness, but my body doesn't like change.
You could argue that it's my body's defining characteristic.
So losing 4 pounds in one week with no drastic measures (just counting calories and exercising 3 times that week)
is a really big deal for me. It made me feel so good about myself and capable of real change.
I no longer felt condemned to this post-marriage weight that made me hate seeing old friends, being in pictures,
and taking part in any degree of physical activity.
But what happened the next week was where I learned a lot about myself.
I found out the good news about my forward progress on Monday. I had already decided I wanted to treat Afton to
a nice dinner in an observation of the day before (Mother's Day). And with this little victory of mine I felt totally fine spending one night eating out with some of my favorite pasta from Oregano's.
But that entire day and the two days following I found myself time and time again, meal after meal making excuses and eating food that was too many calories and only halfway exercising with far less intensity than the previous week.
I had hit a motivational wall.
I spent this weekend thinking a lot about that experience, having already decided that
I'm jumping back into my routine Monday when I got back from my trip with Afton.
I wondered a lot why people in general have a tendency to get a little success and then ruin it right away.
Why do I seem to always respond to a step forward with two steps backward?
I thought about past experiences- both successes and mistakes.
I thought about the long process of preparing myself to marry Afton.
I thought about my journey to graduate college (which I'm still venturing in).
And I thought about the ups and downs of life that we all seem to experience.
I think I found part of the answer to it, at least for me.
What if I just have the wrong idea of what the endgoal is?
And I'm not just talking about health and losing weight here- I'm talking about progression, learning and understanding, growing as an individual. Identifying the weaknesses and humbly working at them day by day to transform them into strengths.
What if, as I'm working to be a better me, I have this false notion of where I'm trying to get to?
When I lost 4 pounds I felt really great about myself. As I should have- it was hard and required a lot of discipline I don't typically possess. But I was satisfied ending my journey there as opposed to continuing onward and upward. I had found a pattern of life that was working for me and giving me results, I just needed to want more for myself.
What if we all are settling for a version of ourselves that is so far less than our potential?
I grew up all my life hearing how much potential I have and I always resented it.
I always took it as someone telling me that where I was wasn't good enough.
But that's just not true. I was simply being content with too little. I deserved better- we all deserve better!
I realized after this experience that no matter where we are in the journey of life, we have within us the ability to do more.
So this week I'm getting back on track.
I am letting this experience change me, and be open to changing more than I may want to now.
There's The Rub.
4 comments:
This is a great post. I like that it's not just about weight loss, but more about who we want to become and not settling.
I think you're doing great in just the fact that you recognize what you can be changing and that you know you need to keep working. I know many people who struggle because they never quite grasp that.
Also, I don't know if you want advice or if I am even qualified, but for me, I do much better at reaching goals when I become very specific. Specific in exactly what I want to achieve, when I want to achieve it by, checkpoints along the way, and what I need to do to get there. You've got this.
I like this a lot. I do this all the time with my own goals -- I aim too far and then disappoint myself. I think I need to run X miles per week or clean my entire room....when really, I could have aimed for less miles or just to clean one PART of my room and gotten that done, and then moved on to the next thing next week. My goals are always too big and then when I realize I'm not going to measure up, I tend to hide from the goal and not do any of it at all. Now if I can only figure out how to be ok setting small goals, that'll be something...
This is great. I've been recently pondering and studying what my "purpose" is. It's super helped me realize the things I really want to accomplish in life. And how small day to day things can contribute to my purpose. Blog post coming soon....
Good luck!
Thanks a lot for this, it was something I needed to hear. I really admire you Tyson for your perseverance and honesty. And it looks like everyone shares your sentiment of needing to take slightly smaller steps toward a better way of living.
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