A Bit Of Inspiration

Yesterday, my copy of The Best of Clean Eating 2: Over 200 Recipes with Cleaned-Up Comfort Foods and Fast Family Dinners showed up.

The recipes in it are awesome -- full of healthy, vibrant, nutrient-dense yumminess.  I've already flagged half a dozen with post-it flags that we'll be trying over the next couple of weeks and I'm only on the third section. 

This one may be better than their first cookbook, The Best of Clean Eating: Over 200 Mouthwatering Recipes to Keep You Lean and Healthy, and I cook out of it all the time. 

But yesterday, as I sat in the alley behind my daughter's school waiting for pick-up time, I was struck by a moment of clarity: it isn't enough just to look at the pretty pictures or like the recipes or just want to be healthier in some vague, abstract, longing sort of way.  Even though that is completely and totally my M.O.

You have to live healthier, do things healthier, really buy in and dig deep and do what you need to do -- ALL of what you need to do -- to get yourself there.

It isn't enough just to know what you should be doing, you have to actually DO it.  Every day.  Which is a problem for me, based on my couch-potato-esque workout wanna be self at the moment.  I want the health and vitality that comes with living a healthier life, with doing the exercises, with eating healthy and clean every single mouthful. 

I just haven't been able to get there...one excuse at a time.

When I got back home, in a moment of serendipity, I ran across the above YouTube. Watch it.  It is brilliant. And spot on for me.

I'll admit to having used at least 20 of these excuses (at the very least) to not go for a walk or lift weights.  Or to eat that chip (and then several handfuls of its closest chip buddies).  Or that cookie.  Or...honestly, name yer poison, even if I know better, I'm still reaching for it out of habit, out of comfort, out of stress or boredom or whatever other excuse I can wrangle for the salty, fatty, goodie to make its way toward my gut.

And it shows.

No more. Do you hear me?  No more.


From this day forward, I will make healthier choices.  With every bite.  With every step.  With movement and energy and rhythm and everything else that I have.

I've lost 17 pounds over the course of the last year, but I can feel my old, bad habits creeping back in when I get exhausted or stressed.  Which means bad choices and no exercise, which then turns into the vicious cycle of getting more tired then reaching for more bad food and so on and so on.  You know what I'm talking about:  that point where the jeans won't button and you sit there feeling that miserable self-loathing in the pit of your stomach and hear the call of Ben and Jerry to soothe your woes even though you know it won't soothe anything?  I can't be the only person who fights this internal dialogue on a poopy day.

It is well past time that I value how I take care of my own self as highly as I value how I take care of everyone else around me.  And that begins today.

I will work toward what I want to be with every lift of my fork, instead of burying myself under more nonsense.  I will do the same with every chance I have to walk further, lift heavier, do more...be more.

I deserve this.  Moreover, I want it.  Really, really want it.

This is that turning point.  I will make it happen.

At the end of the day, I want to be able to say that I have done everything I can to be the best that I can be, and to do what was needed to keep myself healthy for my darling girl.  She didn't choose an older momma, but infertility hell made that happen nonetheless.  I want to be more vibrant and fun for her -- and for me -- because we both deserve to be more active together.  I want to be that role model for her, one step at a time.

I'm going to sit down today and come up with concrete goals, and how I'm going to achieve them.   Starting with baby steps and then moving forward to giant, healthy leaps.

I'm going to post some progress here going forward.  I'm going to share my journey in the hopes that someone else may benefit from it, too.  It may not be pretty, but I'm doing it anyway.  Because being healthier is something I want to feel and do and be -- for myself and for my family.  I want to feel and look as vibrant on the outside as I am on the inside.  I want to nourish myself instead of piling in more garbage, and I want to make healthier choices with food and exercise so that my risk of breast cancer is also reduced.

To borrow a very poignant, very real and true phrase?  I will:  JUST.  DO.  IT.

So, who is with me?