As I logged on to Facebook this morning one of my favorite people had put up a comment about maintenance after weight loss surgery being a battle…oh wait, here it is complete and direct from The World According to Eggface’s Facebook post:
“The fight is FOREVER. Healthy food choices, move the body, work on the head. Repeat. Hope my fellow fighters have a great week! We're in this together and knowing I'm never alone on the battlefield helps :) She then printed a pic of a T shirt that says - “Just because the monkey is off my back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.”
I love the tee shirt, but I started thinking about what was being said and I realized that these are good and important words for some, but TODAY for me I needed to look at it differently. I didn’t want to “struggle”, I wanted to LIVE.
I then posted the following :
“If I approach it as a battle I can win or lose it, if I approach it as a Lifestyle I can CHOOSE IT! Today, I CHOOSE health.“
Choosing a lifestyle rather than fighting a war just sounded right to me. It sounded like something I want to do, something that can get me out of bed in the morning and off to the gym with a smile on my face (and coffee in my cup). I choose to work out because it feels good, starts my day off right, and all of those endorphins are better than chocolate….well, maybe as good as…but I can create them and negative calories rather than adding calories to my day with chocolate. Let’s see, hmmm, chocolate or the gym. I CHOOSE the gym. Maybe Saturday night, when I allow myself 1 glass of red wine I will choose 1 square of dark chocolate to have with it, but that is Saturday night, not a choice I need to make right now so I can let it go.
My day continues, I can stop at my local foo-foo coffee shop and get some ice blended drink and some incredibly sugary treat for breakfast or I can have a cup of green tea with lemon grass and spearmint and then heat my frittata in the microwave and have a great breakfast for 170 calories and 26 grams of protein. I CHOOSE green tea and then the frittata.
Here comes lunch. The convenience store across the parking lot has chips of all flavors, drinks of all kinds and large bags of pistachios and cookies and ice cream. Amazing, I can probably recite everything on every darn shelf in there except for the liquor because that doesn’t interest me when I head in there for a sugar free ice tea or a 130 calorie bag of pistachios. I cannot tell a lie, sometimes I do make bad choices like chips or cookies or ice cream, but not today. Today I choose to be healthy. If I walked into the store to fight a battle I would lose most every time. While I certainly can fight to win, why fight? It takes too much energy. Today I walked in to the store having made my choice before I got across the parking lot. Ice tea, just ice tea and that is fine. Once again, I CHOOSE health. This is rewarding, I feel good about my choices, I feel good about my day and best of all, I feel good about myself.
Before I start sounding like a Pollyanna (or is it too late?), you all need to understand that I write these pieces, this blog, for myself as much as I do for you. Putting it down on paper, writing down my emotions and doing a little bit of self analysis really helps me move forward and, in the words of one of my favorite Banded Living members, keep on keeping on.
Today is a good day. I got a reasonable night’s sleep, it’s warm and sunny out and my head is in the right place. Today it’s about choices, one choice at a time and they have not been simple, but they have been relatively easy to make and I want to immerse myself in this feeling of power over my life, power over my choices and work on understanding how I access it. This is what I do - I notice it, I examine it, I “file” it for retrieval at a later date when the monkey starts crawling out from under that circus tent. Do you remember that feeling shortly after lap band surgery when you were not at all hungry? Do you remember how amazing it was? Do you remember me, or someone else telling you to live that feeling, capture it, wash yourself in it, acknowledge it, love and cherish and nurture it? That’s what’s going on here. By living one healthy choice at a time, by being the best that I can be in each moment, I get to LIVE in a state of grace.
I watch my own back, I try by example to show others how to watch their back, and together we can make it about choosing a lifestyle rather than fighting a war. It’s much easier to smile and enjoy life when I am at peace with myself then when I am fighting a battle. Just sayin'…….
Does this make sense to anyone besides me?
How is your day going?