After my first post, I was overwhelmed by the task ahead.
It felt that I had taken on something that was “too big” for me to do. I kept procrastinating, allowing fear and doubt to take over. Instead of moving forward, I chose to stay in my comfort zone. Sounds familiar?
But when you are called to do something, it will constantly play on your mind; you keep getting reminders of what you have to do.
Two months later, I’m back in. I read an Instagram post by Teri Tolliver (@mysexyisstrong) who after numerous attempts has completely transformed her life. At her heaviest, Teri was 321lbs. Today, she is a certified personal trainer.
She posted…” there is no magic switch that goes off and one day you wake up as a fitness guru. It’s going to take trial and error. It’s going to take research. It’s going to take time.” She admitted that although she quit on herself many times, she never fully gave up.
This resonated with me because I realized that somehow, I believed, or hoped, that I would wake up one morning feeling like a different person. I would feel happy and inspired. There would be a total shift in my way of thinking and I would be committed
to a healthy lifestyle.
This euphoric feeling of empowerment and motivation would carry me through the
rest of my life, and I would achieve all of my nutrition and fitness goals. But that’s not
how it works. Is it?
It takes time.
It takes discipline.
It takes effort.
And that effort must come EVERY SINGLE DAY.
You don’t realize how deep-rooted a behaviour is until you try to change it. I didn’t realize how much I used food to cope with life until I tried to change my eating habits. Although I have made significant progress, this continues to be a challenging area for me.
I’ve tried to solve many of my problems with salty, greasy and fatty foods like macaroni pie with gravy and coleslaw, snack boxes and chicken sandwiches. Or cheesy snacks like Doritos and Cheetos.
For breakfast, it would be slices of wholewheat (because it was “healthier” lol) toast and cheese. I remember after dealing with stressful situations at work, I would start to think about what I should have for lunch, or what I could eat after work to make
me “feel better”. I would eat alone…in the car or on the floor at home while watching tv.
In public, I was very careful with what I ate. I would go to the gym at least four days a week. Many days I would prepare healthy meals and snacks and take them to work. Many days I would bring that healthy food back home. I always hid the fast- food containers or put them in the waste bins where I ate lunch, so that no one at work, or at home would see what I was eating. I’ve come to realize that I was not only deceiving those around me, but I was also deceiving myself.
Looking back, it’s interesting, I really didn’t think I eat that badly but I wondered why I couldn’t get my weight under control. Why couldn’t I control my blood pressure without medication? I was sure that there were others who ate worse than I did. So why was my body fat still above 30%?
We’ll talk more about this next time.
