One of my friends who is also focusing on improving her health – Code Name: Church Lady – sent me a video entitled “Lose your belly fat in 4 weeks.” We had a good laugh at that. I responded maybe I could lose some belly fat in 4 months or maybe 4 quarters, but ain’t no way I would be losing my belly fat in 4 weeks.
I hesitate to call when I’m on a journey because a journey implies there is an end point. When it comes to my health, there is no end point. There’s not going to be a time where I say – all right, I’m not going to care about my blood pressure, a1c, or cholesterol anymore. These are things that are going to be with me for the rest of my life.
I do, however, have a three-year plan –
First year is to focus on building healthy habits and create a web to support my healthy habits.
Second year is when request a reduction in medication.
Third year Sustainable healthy habits and can get off medication for good.
Will this work? I honestly don’t know. I’m prepared that I may have to be on medication for the rest of my life. I have to acknowlege that possibility because I would be so tempted to stop everything if I don’t reach my goal. My goal is for my blood pressure, cholesterol and a1c to be normal. My goal is to have a healthy life. A reduction in the dosage of medication is a win for me.
But let’s go back and look at my first-year goal – build healthy habits.
Eons ago, I lost a lot of weight using what I nicknamed The No Fun Diet. Amazingly, the No Fun Diet was not sustainable. I did not eat vegetables on a regular basis growing up. I had no idea that vegetables needed seasonsing to taste good. I thought if you didn’t like Brussel sprouts then you don’t like veggies. Folks may talk about intuitive eating, but I have no idea when to stop.
One thing that I came back to was that everything is a habit. So, my focus was substituting non-helpful habits with hepful ones. I would ask myself if I could keep this up forever and my response is – I kept up eating pizza and ice cream and hamburgers and fries on a regular basis. How is this so different?
I gave myself PLENTY of time and opportunities to fail. A whole year. Although healthy weight loss is 1 – 2 pounds a week, my goal was simply for the scale to go down. I joked I was in the half-pound-a-week weight loss gang.
When I attend exercise classes like my pom pom dance class, my goal is to find out if the class works for me. I’m not trying to make myself fit in the class. That’s also part of my first-year plan when it comes to living a healthy life. It’s why I’m trying out different groups. Everyone is not going to like me. I’m not going to like all activities. I try things and where it’s a good fit, I double down.
The real goal of the first year is to know that I know that I know I can accomplish my goal. With this confidence, I can move out into the world.
How is this about writing? You see that measured approach I used for my health – long time period, knowing that this is a lifetime gig, grace, focusing on the best match with community activities? This is exactly what I did not do when it came to writing.
How you do one thing is how you do everything. I’m seeking to incorporate those lessons with how I approach writing – take a long view approach, love those who love me, and keep exploring and seeking new challenges.
Let’s see how it goes.
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