No Rush

I am learning the difference between setting a goal and setting a deadline.

I have a goal to get healthy, to establish healthy habits, and hopefully lose 100lbs along the way :) You will notice that when I started this challenge I never gave myself a deadline. After all, this is a lifestyle change. NOT a diet. But, sometime in August I got really excited about the idea of losing the first 50lbs  before the end of the year. WHY? Well, because I'm living at my in-laws until the end of December when my family will fly back to Halifax. And in my in-law's crawl space, I have all my "skinny clothes" packed away. They are all the clothes that I wore in my latter years of University, when I was dating Tanner, and when I was working at the Gap. So they're nice clothes that have sentimental value to me. And yeah, it would be nice to pull them out from that crawl space before we move so I can bring them wear them when we fly back. I talked with TJ and Mal about this goal and whether or not it was attainable, and they gave me the go-ahead.

So now I no longer just had a goal, I had a deadline.

Initially, having the goal to lose 50lbs before the end of the year was very motivating. I would find myself getting excited about the "new" wardrobe I was going to have and thinking about how awesome I would feel. I kept my focus for a solid two weeks. But then . . . I'd slip up. Not just for a day, but sometimes for several consecutive days. I would start stressing out, thinking that I'd fall short of my 50lb goal. I started focusing more on the weight lost and less on loving myself at all stages. When I would have cheat days, or stopped seeing changes in my weight, I would think "I'm a failure! I'm never going to lose the weight by Christmas, now!"

Where there was once excitement, there was now a feeling of hopelessness.

I only realized a week or so ago what was going on.

I had given myself a time limit.

I am learning that time limits DON'T WORK for me! Especially when it is dealing with weight-loss, because this is not a race and I should never feel like I'm failing! The positive healthy choices I am making far outweigh the bad ones. So yes, I am making steps in the right direction, albeit baby ones.

I'll still bring those clothes on the plane with me when we go back, because I'm sure that sometime in the near future I will fit them again.

No rush.

*BIG SIGH*

I feel a whole lot better, now :)

You Choose

In my young adult years, I made a really stupid decision. (Well, several actually, but today I'm going to talk about just one of them.) The consequences of which I have carried with me each day since. 

In 2004, I was home for the summer after my first year at university. I was hanging out with my older sister at a her in-laws ranch. We had been having fun riding go carts with her kids, when I got he stupid idea to ask if I could try out her dirt bike. I'd never been on a dirt bike, and for years I had asked my sister let me take a ride on one. I guess by this time I was an adult and my sister thought that I was ready (as a youth, my father would have never approved), so she said yes. I guess we both had a dumb moment where we didn't think things through, because I hopped on that powerfully fast YZ250 and thought that I'd just go for a little ride.

5 seconds.

That's how long I was on the bike before the bike was on me. 

Obviously I had no idea what I was doing and ended up cat walking on the back wheel before the bike fell back on me and bent my left leg back, tearing cartilage and my ACL. I was in A LOT of pain.

I don't really know why it took me so long to end up in a orthopaedic surgeon's office, but in 2006 I had reconstructive surgery to repair my knee. After surgery came the long and messy healing process, that included in a 3 week hospital stay due to infection, of which I never fully recovered. 

I was pretty depressed about my knee. Always in pain. Always aching. For years, I would let this be my excuse to not being able to be a fit and healthy person. I was afraid to exercise, fearing I would re-injure myself. Fearing the pain. I remember a couple of years ago, sitting at home with my two girls in the living room and feeling sad and restless. As I looked out the window, I saw a woman run past down the sidewalk. She looked so fit, so healthy, so vibrant, so happy.

And I just bawled my eyes out.

"That can never be me!" I said to myself."I will never be abel to run. I will never climb a mountain. I will never be able to play soccer with my kids. I will never go skiing. I will never be abel to kneel during family prayer. I will never . . . I will never . . . I will never . . . " I cursed my body, my knee, those 5 seconds on that dirt bike. One choice. Once stupid choice! 

I let that choice define me for a really long time. 

This summer, I reached a crossroads. I could keep on living my life the way I had defined it for myself: overweight and out of shape, or I could change. 

I chose to change. 

I took ownership of my unhealthy choices and decided I was going to live a healthy life. I was going to exercise. I was going to move my body, however unfamiliar and awkward I felt. Still, I was nervous about how far a could push myself and my knee. I was afraid I'd push myself to hard and be unable to walk without flinching in pain. So I started out simply and slowly: short runs, shallow squats, low impact exercises. 

It felt awesome.

Then Malorie challenged me to run a mile. I nervous and skeptical . . . but, I did it. I ran a mile! And not only that, I didn't feel any pain in my knee! I remember praying that night on the track, thanking God for blessing my mind and body, allowing me to run without pain and giving me the confidence I needed to do it, to do all of this. Then, a couple of weeks later I ran 3.6km! I couldn't even believe it! ME! Running! I'm not even close to calling myself a "runner", but I am seeing the potential in myself to become one (as long as I'm sure not to push myself/my knee too far, of course). Baby steps. 

So here's my food for thought. IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO CHOOSE. Whatever decisions you or I have made in the past, are in the past. You can either let those decisions follow you around for the rest of your life, or you can move forward and define your life by other measures. Sure, my knee injury will be something I have to live with for the rest of my life, but I am not going to let that be my excuse.

So I'm going to ask you in a totally loving and non-judgemental way: What's your excuse? What's holding you back from becoming who you want to be, your true self? Is there something you can change today? It doesn't have to be monumental, either. It can be something as simple as drinking more water, taking the stairs, eating less sugar, or at least choosing to be kinder to yourself.

"If you want something you've never had,

you're going to have to try something you've never done."

- random dude on TLC's 19 Kids and Counting 

 And I totally believe it.

Embrace the Sweat

**QUICK SIDE NOTE: We are 13 days into our Mile a Day challenge! How is everyone doing? Are you simply loving it!? I'll admit, I've missed two days in there (kids, hormones, attitude). But, I am not going to let my all-or-none personality get the best of me, so I continue to try and do my best.  Because that's all we can really ask of ourselves, really. **

When I started exercising in July, I hated it. Just being honest here. Yeah, I guess I did love all the endorphins pumping through me. The self pride and emotional high for having completed something challenging also felt pretty good. But the feeling of being totally overheated was just not appealing. Clothes, constricting. Thirst, unquenchable. I felt like my face would almost turn purple, I'd be so hot! Yeah, I guess it was the middle of summer, but something just didn't seem right. I felt like I could only workout for a maximum of 20 minutes before I'd pass out from heat exhaustion! But then I realized something:

I wasn't sweating.

Even on the hottest day and hardest workout, I'd MAYBE start to glisten, but no real dripping sweat. But then, after about a couple of weeks of eating right and exercising, I started to sweat!  Like, needing-a-towel-on-hand kind of sweat! At the same time I noticed that I also wasn't getting overheated during a workout and was able to go longer and harder with out dying from heat exhaustion. It was awesome!

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

I'm not going to claim to know much about the science of sweat, but I DO know that it is through sweating that your body is able to regulate its temperature an keep you from overheating. So my theory is that as my body was not used to ANY physical activity really, and maybe sorta forgot how to do it's job. Can your body forget how to sweat? Because that is what it felt like.

Now, I sweat buckets and I love it. When I come home from a run, or finish my daily workout from Mal and TJ, I am dripping in sweat. I feel awesome and I feel healthy. I feel like my body is expelling toxins and cleaning out all the gunk that have built up over years of unhealthy living. I feel youthful. I feel like I really accomplished something awesome. AND I feel like doing it all again tomorrow!

So this I say to you: EMBRACE THE SWEAT! It means your body is smiling inside . . . that's what I've decided :)

And if you are looking for a great workout to get your sweat on, here's what I did for today:

2 RFT (Rounds For Time: meaning do all the exercises in sequence twice through as fast as you can. Record your time to see how you have improved when you do it again later)

8 Burpees
20 Situps
8 Burpees
20 Pushups
8 Burpees
20 Squats
8 Burpees
20 Bicep Curls (I have wimpy arms and did these with 5lbs weights. Ha!)
8 Burpees
20 Walking Lunges

Happy sweating! *maniacal laugh*