As of today I am no longer a woman who just lost 15 pounds over the first half of the summer. I am a woman who needs to lose 15 pounds and is going to start from scratch preparing to run a 5K. While I’m thrilled with my progress so far, the fact is that I still have a long journey ahead of me, and honestly I am just now facing the hardest part. The first 15 pounds was my body saying, “Oh my God, FINALLY!” but to lose the next 15 pounds I’m going to have to convince my body that it really is okay to let go. I also need to convince myself – my whole self – that the reward for working out every day is not stopping work outs completely. This is the problem with the way motivation works for most things. You start a task, you work on a task, you complete a task, you stop. And you reward yourself, often with chocolate. Now the reward is having the energy to keep working on the task and continuing to feel good. Knowing that the journey I started is going to last my entire life is a little daunting, so I decided to sit down and take a breather. It’s time to step back up.
My biggest challenge right now is finding time to work out because I’ve switched from Wii games to the Couch to 5K program. I started week 1 while the kids were in camp, and it went really well. Then I went to Disney for an anniversary trip with my husband, ate enough food to keep a small village alive, and decidedly did not work out. I came back to the hottest temperatures in recorded history, which kept me from running. They kept me from going outside at all, actually. Suddenly I forgot that the Wii works in the air conditioning and that not being able to do Week 2 of Couch to 5K does not mean sitting on the couch and waiting for week 3. So I’m hitting the restart button. I’m taking down the chart that shows that I lost 15 pounds. I’m erasing all those days that I worked out every single day. I’m a blank canvas, and I’m ready to accomplish new goals.
Today is day 1 of Mamavation. My goal is to lose 15 pounds and train to run a 5K by October 1st. Who’s with me?
