What is that thing, that barrier between who we want to be and who we are? Why is it so hard to go from sincere desire to do something to actually doing it?
Since the beginning of 2015 I have been trying to switch to an AM workout routine. When I get home from work at night I just want to be able to veg out, catch up on Mad Men, Daredevil, finally finish Breaking Bad (!), and spend time with my husband. I don’t want to worry about cooking dinner, eating, digesting, and THEN getting in a run at the gym. AM workouts make sense – give up a little sleep, start your day off on the right foot, and have your after work time for whatever your heart desires! It’s a total win-win.
And yet, for the last two weeks especially, I have been a lazy pile of mush. It’s like I’ve just given up and I feel miserable about it all day. I’m not kidding you or myself when I say that I really, truly, do want to be the person that makes working out a part of their every day. I want to be the person that makes healthy choices. It’s not just who I think I should be – my heart half in it. No, it’s the person I absolutely WANT to be.
I’ve seen my attitude towards fitness change over the last 5 years. In the summer of 2010 I was 205lbs. After spending all my years from childhood through college active in sports, I was living at home, dating my now husband, and making all the wrong choices. I was never active. I ate horribly. I didn’t even realize how much weight I had gained until my friend Juliann posted some pictures of me from a concert that summer. Chuck and I booked our first trip to Disney not long after that – I got a personal trainer at the gym, joined Weight Watchers, and I dropped 20lbs in two months. At the time I didn’t start because I wanted to get “fit”. I just wanted to look better in pictures on our vacation. It was pure insecurity and vanity. I gained about 10lbs back over the winter but then I signed up for a mud run and started running 3 times a week. Slowly but surely over time the weight kept coming off.
By the time I got married last year I was down to 154lbs and since then I’ve gained about 10 back. But honestly, it’s never been about the numbers – the scale, the pants size, etc. Since that initial weight drop I have really just wanted to feel healthy and feel good about the person I see in the mirror. And most of the time I do. But lately, it’s been harder. I don’t know if it’s my sleep schedule – I often wake up when my husband does around 4:30 or 5 in the morning and then try to go back to sleep for a bit and get all messed up – or mild depression because I just don’t want to go to work that badly. Whatever the reason there is a distinct disconnect between who I want to be, who I’ve been working towards being for the last 5 years, and who I currently am. Why is it so hard to do something you actually want to do? Why can’t I just flip a switch in my brain to get my act together?
Lola Writes the Wave 
You make such a good point- why IS it so hard to do something you want to do? This is what makes me so interested in the psychology of eating and weight loss.
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I completely understand where you’re coming from. Whenever I’m actively trying to engage in healthy behaviors, it feels infinitely harder to make healthy decisions than when I’m just living my life normally. And when I do get into a pattern of exercising and eating well, if I let it lapse for a second, it’s so hard to pick it up again. I feel like I’m constantly taking one step forward, two steps back.
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Helen, completely agree. It’s almost like the more you focus on it sometimes the more the bigger a deal you make it in your head or something. Maybe if I wasn’t so hard on myself about it I would ease into it more? Then again, I might just end up a lazy sausage in my bed for the rest of my life.
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