Tomorrow

"Tomorrow I'll start." "Tomorrow, I'll be good." "Tomorrow I'll start working out. "Tomorrow..."

No more tomorrow. I am changing my vocabulary to "Today". 

I am rather surprised at my complete lack of investment and energy when it comes to my health. I am always too tired or uninspired to get on track. I wouldn't typically describe myself as this type of person. I am hard-working, intentional and faithful. So why am I not myself when it comes to being healthy? What makes me cave at the overwhelming mountain instead of conquering it like I have many things in my life? Am I burned out? Is my perfectionism preventing me from making any progress at all because I want perfection or nothing?

I realized something over the past few days. I believe I take challenges on like a sprinter. I was a sprinter on my track team in junior high. I was pretty fast...one of the faster ones on the team. I loved putting all my energy in and running as fast as I could for 14 short seconds. Then I was done. We sprinters would increase our endurance during practice by running long distances. I dreaded it. Hated it. Couldn't do it. Would practically keel over! Just let me put it all on the line for a short time and be done with the misery before my mind realizes what's going on.

I had this attitude in school. I would work really hard for 7 weeks of the quarter and then coast until finals. My grades were usually high enough and I had invested enough that I could coast through while maintaining an A. 

When I clean the house, I dump EVERYTHING out and start by tackling EVERYTHING. About 1 box of papers and a clean toilet later I quit...with EVERYTHING still scattered about the house and floor.

So I have come to the conclusion, that this is how I approach challenges. Sometimes it works great and I receive great rewards for my hard work. But when it comes to being healthy and making changes to LAST A LIFETIME, I have yet to succeed with my well-worn yet futile plan of action.

So TODAY, that all changes. TODAY I woke up and fueled my body for a workout. I ate some raisin bran for breakfast followed by a banana and a cutie. I fueled my body with water and went for a light jog around Bradley Lake Park. 0.8 mile jog followed by 0.8 mile of walk/intermittent jogging. Not much....but something. A start. A beginning.

TODAY I make concrete goals of HOW to be healthy instead of the vague goal of BEING healthy. I can't work with vagueness. I need to have a checklist, or actual goals I can aim for. Otherwise I get overwhelmed. So what are a few of the starting goals I came up with?

1. Drink at least 2 of these bottles a day for a total of 54 oz of water.

2. Walk at least 5,500 steps for the next 7 weeks so I can reach my healthy at work goal. (P.S I take about 8,200 steps at work...more than a typical day, but I think I was secretly hoping for 15,000 or something ridiculous like that.)

3. Try and get a serving of fruits and vegetables in every day.

4. DO some sort of physical activity on my days off.

5. Work up to running a 5k distance without needing to stop. (I ran my first 5k last year, but have gotten out of the routine and need to work back up to that distance again since 1 mile is kicking my toosh.)

Seafair 2012 - My first 5k

6. Eat HALF of a restaurant portion and take the other half home.

Those are some of the goals I came up with and will continue to find in what areas I need to be specific in order to succeed.

And no more throwing a whole day away if I mess up a meal. Every bit counts, I can't have the all or nothing attitude anymore. 

I am no longer going to try to sprint up the mountain, because I will fail. I need to backpack and hike my way up, enjoying the scenery and company who have agreed to come with me. Only then will I be able to stand at the top and see all that has been experienced and accomplished.