I did what I had to do to bring up our kids & now I enjoy & appreciate my life so much more.
Yes! I agree with that too. I'm happy to be in a less frantic stage of life right now. (Knocks on wood).
Or, as someone once said (and I can't remember who): healthy choices are simple, but that doesn't always make them easy.
Oh boy ain't that the truth. I have that thought many times each day, especially as they relate to my own self-discipline, motivation and energy management. It seems to be an art, really.
And talking of healthy choices...I'm overhauling everything, starting today
. I got on the scales this morning. In the past, doing this was immensely binge-triggering and made me miserable so I stopped doing it. Ignorance was bliss on this one. However, I have also been trigger-free by doing the opposite - weighing myself each day, which stopped me taking any tiny fluctuation personally. Therefore, like the happiness calendar, I'm going to bring that habit back too and maybe even plot another graph, since visuals tend to speak to me more than just numbers. I like how the weight graph really isn't very undulated at all. It mostly looks flat, with slight trends over time, no matter where I am in my fitness.
My weight was up by a lot since the previous weigh in.
I also took a hard look at my calorie intake and expenditure. I hate thinking about calories. But I did it for about an hour to do some calculations, and come up with the same thing that I know worked for me in the past, that should work for me now, IF I DO THEM.
Here are my goals.
3 meals of around 500 cals each, daily.
3 snacks, if necessary, of around 100 cals each (binge prevention), daily.
4 hours min of skating per week, weather permitting (burns 800 cals an hour at my weight & speed) - for happiness and a functional brain.
1 hour decent effort walking per day, weather permitting (but not on skate days).
3-5 x 40 min weights workouts per week.
Retraining my brain to 'not think about food'. Each time I start obsessing, be aware of it and tell it to go away unless it's a mealtime.
Well let's see if I can make all of these habits. Biggest problem will be fitting in a few long skates, since we seem to be in a pattern of afternoon/evening T-storm deluge here. It's usually enough to really mess up the one 94 mile paved trail I like to use, as that trail has a thick tree canopy, which means not only does a lot of debris fall onto the trail during storms, but the pavement takes much longer to dry out, and as long as it's damp, it'll be slick too and therefore unskateable for me. I can make do with the 1 mile stretch closer to home that has no tree canopy and dries out faster. It's just not as visually enjoyable as going out 15 miles or so then coming back another 15.
Edit: Well the cravings have now mysteriously already started.
I guess I'm going to give them some credence. I will entertain the thought and make notes for the next meal, and incorporate them into it if possible/wise. If not, I will tell them to go away too. I'm not hungry, physically. My stomach is full from breakfast! Good grief. This whole scarcity mindset really steals a lot of my energy.
Any exercise is good exercise, MsB. With goals I try to set a minimum & aim to go higher if I can, otherwise I feel I'm setting myself up to feel like a failure.