Monday Motivation

Okay... so this image isn't maybe the most motivational thing you've seen but I'm going to share it anyway and then I'll explain why.



I've been struggling with my weight loss journey. I know I'm not alone. One of my biggest frustrations is fighting the feeling of being deprived. It seems like so much of losing weight is "Don't eat this.." and "Stop drinking that..." and "If you keep doing that you'll never lose weight..." Anyone else feel this way? It's kind of exhausting. And by the end of a week of depriving myself of things that I've previously associated with fun or convenience or yumminess, I have a tendency to give up and dive back into all those things I'd been deprived of for the week.

It recently occurred to me that a mindset shift is in order. There are plenty of things we should be ADDING to our experience to help us along our journey. It's not just about eliminating bad habits, it's about introducing good ones, too.

So in the spirit of this new mindset shift, I'm trying something right now that I hope will help me in my own personal journey and I wanted to share it with you in the hopes of motivating some positive, forward moving progress for us all! For this week I'm going to try really hard to focus on how many healthy, happy things I can add to my life and not worry so much about the things I need to eliminate. I want to end the week feeling satisfied, not deprived.

For example, I'm going to focus on how happy emotionally and physically I feel when I've participated in a fun, physical activity. I'm going to make sure to include fun exercise like dancing and Zumba and yes, even running, to my daily schedule and focus on that as something I'm adding to my life, rather than thinking about the computer/t.v./crafting, etc time I'm having to "give up" in order to exercise. Instead of thinking "it's hard to go to bed early and lose all that relaxing time at night after the kids are tucked in" I'm going to think "I'm going to add extra sleep to my night and enjoy feeling well-rested and naturally energized because of it!". Instead of feeling the need to eliminate "fast food" or convenient food I'm going to focus on how many healthy things I can quickly grab and eat to satisfy my munchies. Instead of worrying about not eating too many calories, I'm going to worry about eating enough fruits and veggies and even adding more if I'm not getting enough.

I really feel like if I focus on adding good habits, the bad habits will naturally become less desirable and easier to curb or eliminate over a bit of time. That's my hope, anyway! I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. In the meanwhile, be sure to find some positive, healthy habit to work on developing yourself! We can do this!

Cheering you on!

~Ang