I am the queen of excuses.
Sometimes they are valid, but mostly they are just pathetic attempts to make myself feel better for being lazy/clumsy/fat/uninspired.
So yesterday, I finally kicked my own butt, and made an effort. I signed up to Livestrong Women and got the “MyPlate” app for my phone as well.
It has a calorie tracker. I set my current weight, my goal weight, my age, my sex, my height and my activity level and it told me how many calories I should try and consume a day to help me lose weight.
I thought – that looks easy! And then I started actually putting in the things I was eating and wow do those calories add up quickly! Luckily, I saw that a nice easy dog walk a few times a day helps a GREAT DEAL – so imagine how fat I would be if I didn’t have my girls to keep me active?!
So today, I am feeling much better about it all – I know I _can_ go through the day on the calories I have to consume, without feeling hungry, and as long as I keep up with the dog walking, I will manage to lose some weight. Of course, I need to get a scale to actually see if I’ve lost anything!
One of my many excuses for not running started out as a legitimate one: while at the dog park, one of the dogs (not Azzie, surprisingly!) slammed into my knees and popped my right knee back very hard. It was swollen and bruised for over 2 weeks and I could barely walk, much less run. So I gave it 4 weeks to heal. That was 6 weeks ago. So. No more excuses. I MUST RUN! If dog walking takes off anything from 97 to 170 calories, imagine what running can do?! Come on, biatch, get your fat butt in gear.
I must just ignore the guilt I feel for leaving behind two perfectly good dogs while I go off and do stuff on my own… right?
It’s hard. They do everything with me – they are with me nearly 24/7 (only times they are not is when I have to go into a shop etc, so I leave them at home – I don’t leave my dogs in the car if it’s even vaguely warm outside – and if it’s cold, I still only do it for maximum of 5 minutes) so it’s difficult to leave them behind and head out the door in my running shoes. I know it’s all me! They don’t care, as long as I come back! They were the only ones worried the one night that I went for a run late at night and got locked out of the gate I went through and had to run an extra 4km to get home… I was gone nearly an hour… my husband had no idea, but the dogs went ballistic when I got home!
I love them so much, these two silly fluffy butts. They are just getting healthy again, after so many months (years, in Gina’s case) of being unhealthy and not quite “right” at all. They are (besides my husband) my everything in this world.
But it has to be done! I REFUSE to turn into a fatty before I’m 40! It’s no excuse! Sure I’m getting old, heading into middle age… but I know women who are twice my age and they run marathons, for goodness sake! I’m HEALTHY, got use of my legs my body my mind – I have NO excuses left.
And the yoga, too – I need to do that more. The dogs settle after a few minutes of flopping all over me and climbing under my Downward Dog, so that’s not an excuse EITHER!
Vegetarian thing is going well – I’m settling in to my routine and menu nicely, even when tempted by other food that I loved before. I just think about where it came from, how it got there… and my mind is set. I feel healthy, despite the weight I’ve gained (and I know I have, thanks to the wobbly bits and the bits that fight me when I put on an old pair of jeans) I just need to drop the fat now, and tone the muscles that I know I have underneath!
Doing the 30 Day Ab Challenge (Livestrong Women) and I WILL FINISH IT. No giving up.
YAY good for you Suw. You can do it, definitely. But I wouldn’t be so harsh on myself if I were you. We all have blocks to behaviors. You have blocks to healthy behaviors. They aren’t excuses. Deal with the barriers, one by one. Yoga: dogs go in the other room. Husband must keep them from whining. Food: track calories. Buy healthy meals. Guilt: Meditate, treat yourself nicely, buy yourself gifts for a good eating/exercise week. They aren’t excuses! They are just little hills you need to walk over.
Firstly, thanks for reading and thanks for commenting… (I’m not Suw, by the way, but I took the comments to heart anyway!)
Secondly – Really, my excuses are so weak I _know_ they are weak when I hear them in my head (I rarely say them out loud because they would sound even worse! hah!) but I’ve stepped over that “hill” as you put it 🙂 I did a HIIT workout this morning – pushed myself till I was sweating drops and my muscles were all shaking with effort, even when I stopped moving!
I’m proud of myself!
The dogs, as one of my excuses, are easily dealt with now – I just have to pick the right time, and do it more often. This morning, I decided to do the workout after we’d come back from our long morning walk, and they’d had their “brunch” so they were relaxed and content and tired and they went off to their spots to snooze. Azzie did come to check on me when I brought my yoga mat out, but I simply told her to relax go lie down and waited patiently until she did so. She remained sleeping until about 5 minutes before the end, when I was doing high intensity stuff (making a new noise) so she came to check again, but I reassured her, and she went back to her spot to chill.
I think their attention is caused by a confusion/change in their daily routine – so I just have to make this part of our day, and they will be fine with it. They’re smart dogs, they learn quickly.
Thanks again for the insights! 🙂