Motivation

Laura (http://mamameltdown.blogspot.com/) wrote an excellent blog about motivation!

In the past, as a child, a teenager, college student and young adult, I have always been very internally self-motivated. Unfortunately for me, several years ago, somewhere in my middle adulthood I slowly began to lose my motivation.

2 Thessalonians 3:13 says "But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good." Unfortunately that is EXACTLY where I am at. I am tired of "doing good." And I have lost my motivation, not just in fitness and health (ironically just when I need it the most! I turn 40 this year) but I have lost motivation in most all areas of life. Job, finances, home, fitness, etc.

Fortunately I recognize my need to get it back.

How or why this happened I really don't know for sure. I could guess. Maybe it is a pride thing. If someone is not patting me on the back saying what a good job I am doing, I don't want to do it. Funny though, I never needed approval before so I'm not sure that is it. Maybe it is a character test for me; What do I do when no one is watching? Do I eat right even when no one but me cares? Do I go the extra mile at work when there is no tangible reward? Perhaps that is it. Maybe it is an attack by devil to get me to give up, give in, let go of my standards. "No one cares, so why should you?" he says. (I hear that question constantly in my head.) Or perhaps I don't spend enough time with like-minded self-motivated optimistic-type individuals. That is very probable!:)

But maybe the hows and whys this has happened are not important. Which brings me to Laura's blog about motivation. She says that rather than waiting to be pulled by motivation, be the push of motivation. Awesome. I don't need to figure out the why, I need to just Do. Her quote at the end is excellent. "What you want to be eventually you must be every day."

So for the rest of my life starting with the next 10 weeks,
. . . . . . .
I commit to eating healthy,
I commit to losing 10 pounds (this may take longer than 10 weeks)
I commit to exercising at least 4 days a week,
I commit to feeding my family healthy dinners at least 4 days a week,
I commit to walking my dog at least 3 days a week,
I commit to not overspending at the grocery store,
I commit to being a more patient and "present in the moment" mother,
I commit to not letting the kid's whining, the pressure of time, dissappointments in myself and others, or discontentment with my perceived progress lead me to overeating,
I commit to never giving up and not letting the haters, the doubters, they naysayers and pessimists win!

It is worth it and it does count, even if it only counts for me.

Feeling Good but Getting Fat

Yes, I do mean I'm getting fat. Wow.

I am fully recovered from being sick. I am actually feeling great. And I have been working out again. I would like to do more running so I am working up to a continuous 30 minutes of running. The race that I wanted to run in at the end of May, I don't think I have enough time to train for. But I am still training.

But my eating is atrocious right now. I am eating everything in site. A lots of sweets. I actually bought a full sugar soda the other day. I haven't drank non-diet soda in probably years. It's like I don't care right now. My problem is I definitely have an all or nothing attitude. If I can't be perfect in my diet or I don't have the perfect body, I go completely in the other direction. And I just give up completely. It is so the wrong attitude. I have seen where eating at least semi-healthy DOES help me not get super fat, it just doesn't get me the perfect fit dream body that I desire. The only way to get my super body (which I've never achieved yet but got very close) is to be really strict with my eating, which I am not interested in. But I could eat semi-healthy and have a semi-healthy body and a semi-dream body, which frankly a semi-dream body appeals to me right now because my squishy, buldging belly body right now is hard to move in. I'm WISHING I had the body that I was UNHAPPY with a year ago. It wasn't as bad as I have now. It is actually VERY UNCOMFORTABLE moving around in my body right now. It feels weird to have the extra flab where there was none before.