What Journey are you on?

Blog #310

What journey are you on?

Physical health happiness journey, or mental health happiness journey?

Is there a difference between them?

I personally do not believe so. In order for me to find my physical health happiness journey, I had to make sure my mental health happiness journey was o.k. first.

I needed to make sure that I wasn’t going to repeat past failures in losing weight and keeping it off.

I did not want to try yet another diet plan and fail. I needed to learn that there is no such thing as a diet. I needed to learn that the only way I could lose weight, reach my goals, and keep it off, was to realize I had to change the whole way I looked at my eating habits.

I needed to analyze my whole diet. Why was I eating the way that I was. Why was I eating what I was eating. Why was I not eating healthy, and why was I not putting myself first. I didn’t realize that analyzing all these things would put me on a better path towards understanding why I thought the way that I did, and my path became much clearer. I needed to eat healthier not just for myself, but to get my family involved in this way of thinking too.

I started thinking of my “Why’s” like I was taking pictures of my life. Pictures of my past, pictures of my present and pictures of what I wanted my future self to look like.

Once I figured out my why, my pictures became a lot clearer. They became brighter and more focused. I realized that I needed a better plan, if I was going to make my health happiness journey successful, both mentally and physically.

Here is what I learned:

· Stop procrastinating. The time to act is now.

· Get a journal, or download a calorie, weight tracking app.

· Record everything I was eating and why I was eating.

· Start counting calories and stick to the quantity each day.

· Weigh and measure out food, so I know what portion sizes are supposed to be for my weight loss success.

· Find out what portion sizes really are supposed to be.

· Start drinking a lot of water.

· Start adding way more vegetables into my diet.

· Start planning meals for the whole week.

· Start getting my family involved on my journey.

· Talk to my enablers and tell them to stop with all the enabling crap.

· Start some kind of exercise.

· Figure out what my food triggers are and Stop buying trigger foods and eating out so much.

· Cut way back on my sugar.

· Eat more protein and cut back on my carb intake – basically stop eating so much freakin bread and pasta!

· Weigh myself once a week to stay on track.

· Don’t get all bummed out and go into depression if the scale doesn’t go down.

· Figure out why the scale didn’t go down, but still don’t get bummed out about it. Shit happens, start a new day.

· Don’t give up on yourself.

· Don’t be impatient.

· Set your goals so they are reasonable and achievable. You are not 18 years old anymore, so don’t even think you are going back to that weight.

· Be positive.

· Find your motivation every day, even if you don’t feel like it. When you don’t feel like it, is when you really need to feel like it.

· Find your support tribe or lone person who gets you.

· Be pro-active, not in-active.

· Move your body in some way every day.

· Take one day at a time.

What journey are you on? The one where you find yourself reaching your goals at the end.

Just do it. Make things happen.