This should be subtitled: Avoiding the All or Nothing Attitude 

Last week, overall, was actually a busy yet good week. The weekend, however, seemed to be off key. We hit the gym on Saturday and I decided I wanted to get to 2 miles with a combo of jogging and walking. I had to up my speed walking and jogging (2.2 average on walk and 2.9-3.2 on jogging), but I got there in 45 minutes. Before I attempt a 5k I want to be at 45 minutes for combo walk-jog for 3.2 miles. I have a long way to go, but part of what I like about trying to jog is that I can set these little goals for myself and watch myself progress without shaping the success discussion into one about calories and pounds lost.

Sunday, on the other hand, wasn’t singing the same song as Saturday. I felt out of sorts. Hubs and I have both been feeling a bit sick off and on. We found ourselves out looking at neighborhoods and measuring how much we could afford since we’d like to finally sell our starter home (that we bought 11 years ago!) and move up to a slightly bigger house. Not significantly bigger, just a bit larger. We were meandering. Those kinds of days can be good, but . . .

Instead of the gym we both just ended up kind of lazing around. We did work out 5 out of 7 days last week so it wasn’t so much that we didn’t get to the gym as the fact that I could feel that attitude shift where I thought: well since I didn’t make it to the gym I’m just gonna have some pizza and wait there is some of that leftover prize chocolate I received and maybe an extra soda for me today.

I fell into that trap of thinking once I do one “bad” thing I should just round the other bad bases until I’ve hit a bad lifestyle home-run.

I put “bad” into quotations because that’s part of the problem with the all or nothing attitude. Once we start saying a missed day at the gym or a brownie are “bad” we put those items on some pedestal. They are no longer a part of our lives and how we function. They become a forbidden fruit. They morph into temptation.

I feel better this morning. I got up regretting the feeling the pizza gave me, but picked up some tea and a low-fat very berry coffee cake from Starbucks before settling in to do some work. I have plans to work relatively mobile today and to make it to the gym where I want to test how far I can go without stopping. But, most of all, I want to stop any little bird who sings in my ear and tells me to do something because it is a rebellion.

The only rebellion I want is the one that lets me just be who I am