By Laurie Marshall
We’ve all done it. In fact, most of us have done it a lot. We say we’re not going to, we rally the troops to keep us on the straight and narrow… we do everything right to set ourselves up for success. But it happens anyway…
We backslide.
We start skipping our workouts. We stop denying the Shake’s siren call on our way home the workout we DO make it to. We pick up a pack of cigarettes on the way back from a hellish business lunch. We lose our tempers when summer boredom turns our darling progeny into headache-inducing maniacs. There are plenty of things we all “allow” ourselves to do that we know are physically, fiscally, or psychologically unhealthy, dangerous or just wasteful. But guess what? We’re human!
If I remember correctly, I think I mentioned the potential of failure when I first started this journey toward the goal of living healthier. The key to any successful venture is simple: keep going. Get back on the wagon, bike, rollerblades or snowboard (although, I did NOT get back on the snowboard… but that’s another story). Just wind the clock up again starting right where you are, and start over. You might have to start over a LOT, or you might have to several times in the beginning, and then find that the intervals between those face-down-in-the-dirt episodes get longer and longer. Either way is acceptable. It’s the starting over that counts, not how many times you had to.
Here are a couple of quotes for you to cut and paste and redesign using cool typeface and print out to hang somewhere you’ll see them often:
Success will never be a big step in the future, success is a small step taken just now. ~Jonatan Mårtensson
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. ~Winston Churchill
That’s what I’m talking about!! I don’t have any idea who that Jonatan is, but he’s one smart cookie.
So, as you have probably guessed by now, because you’re all really clever and have kids which means you can smell a long-winded excuse a mile away, I have been backsliding. I have been drinking soda, I have been eating second helpings, and I have most definitely not been counting my points. And as you’ve read right here in the past, I’ve had some success! I completed the SummerFit program at UofA last summer and was feeling really good about how I looked in my clothes. I have lost 11 pounds on Weight Watchers. What gives???
Well, reality gives, mostly. We get busy… I’ve gotten busy. Things have changed at work and the folks I was relying on to help me stay on course have been too busy to eat together every day. Stuff just happens, and one misstep leads to another, right? So, there you go. But guess what? I’m already making those small steps again to get back to the path I want to be on. I have only had tea and water to drink for the last couple of days and have been eating smaller portions again. I have a cruise coming up in October that I am DETERMINED to lose a dress size for. Small steps.
Life is short, yes, but the road to being healthy is, at times, a long and winding one. The road to ANY success is long and winding. No matter what wagon you find yourself watching drive away from you, dust yourself off and start over right now. Today. You can do it.
Look for Laurie’s fitness tips and updates on her personal health-focused journey every other Thursday on nwaMotherlode in Mom Blogs. Send questions or input to her at mamas@nwaMotherlode.com. Or click on the comment button below and share your thoughts right now! To see previous installments of Getting Healthy for Good, click HERE.
