November has arrived!

As a NYS employee, I am lucky enough to have a lot of paid holidays.  One of which is Election Day.  I almost always take a vacation day on Monday to make it a 4 day weekend.

So I’ve been spending this time off trying to get my head on straight, holding on to a positive frame of mind, and looking to salvage what has been a pretty rotten year for me mentally.

Old habits do die hard. Sunday, Marc and I chose a particularly hard yoga DVD to do together. Shortly into it, while doing downward dog, I looked at what was hanging off my belly in that position and started a mental rant about what a fat cow I am.

Rather than allow that to continue, which is my typical M.O., I actually said “STOP!” out loud. (And then faked a cough so Marc wouldn’t think I was losing it). I forced myself to concentrate on feeling my body in the sometimes unpleasant positions and told myself that my body was strong and I should celebrate what I am able to do that not everyone can.

Yesterday was a wonderful day.  Marc has been wanting to walk or ride our bikes along an old canal route in an area about 1.5 hours from us.  So we got around early.  Because Marc wasn’t sure that the path would be maintained enough for biking, we decide to walk some of it with the dogs and re-visit at another time if it was “bike worthy”.

Fall is proving to be warmer than normal, and it was about 55 degrees and partly sunny.  We leisurely walked the path.

 

We walked a total of 12 miles and I ALMOST didn’t think about whether that was “good enough” or how many calories I was burning.  Instead I enjoyed the day and talked with Marc and watched the dogs running around having a marvelous time.

At this point, I might be only faking it - I’m not sure that I believe it yet. Fake it til you make it, right?

Being positive is not in my nature. PLUS I have spent YEARS of my life hating my body and never feeling good enough. That isn’t going to change overnight.

You know how other weight loss sites tell you that you need to reward yourself for achieving goals?

Do you know that I didn’t ONCE while losing weight reward myself with ANYTHING. It’s not that I deprive myself of things or don’t buy presents for myself - that’s not true. But not once did I say for example - “Good job - you just lost 100 pounds - you should get a pedicure!” About 2 months after I achieved my goal of getting down to 119 pounds I bought new sheets and said that this was my goal present.

As someone who has studied psychology, I know that REWARDS work much better than PUNISHMENT. Unfortunately, I am the first to punish myself and I’m not good at rewarding myself.

I hope you guys reading are nice to yourselves. I hope you are rewarding yourself when you achieve a goal. I hope that you are appreciating the progress you are making!

So there are 2 months left in this year, and my goal doesn’t lie with a number or a skirt size right now.  My goal is to gain some mental stability to lead me into 2016 ready to take on the world!