To Succeed Where I Have Failed Before

My number 6 reason for trying to get in shape and take better care of myself is that it is something that I have tried to do before and failed. I've had temporary successes, but I get derailed. In part, I get derailed because of my job - I'll have months of a good diet and exercise and then get busy with work and it all falls apart. I don't plan well enough in advance to get through long periods of job stress - I fall back on fast food and time crunches and I don't make time for myself, I give it all to the job. I know I have a big all-consuming job assignment in March, so if I can get on track before then and plan ahead, and maybe solicit some extra support during that time from friends or family, then I hope I can get past one of these big work challenges without falling off the diet and exercise wagon. I feel like if I can get past it just once, then I can again - but so far I never have. A major work project derails all my personal care, no matter how well it is going.

In addition to work, I've gotten derailed by travel before, and by reaching a point where I get depressed or lazy and take a day off - and one becomes two, then a week, then...well I lapse back into bad habits. I mean, it's so nice to just eat ice cream and not care about the calories, to bake cookies you crave and eat as many as you want, to laze around watching movies and not push myself to do anything at all. It's a vacation. The health and exercise program takes energy and it wears me down over time. Unlike most people, I never seem to get MORE energy from exercise, it just makes me tired. I don't know if that will ever change.

I think there are many parallels between eating badly and alcoholism. You can tell yourself you won't eat bad foods and then find yourself eating them without realizing it. You can find yourself slipping once and ruining a long period of success. And, you can find yourself doing what you know you don't want to do and not being able to explain it to yourself. So I am going to try and work on my conscious mind, my subconscious mind, and get into habits and patterns that seem natural and routine so that my defaults are to things that are good for me, not things that are bad for me.

I've been able to do most of what I set my mind to, so I don't like having this one area of failure in my life that I've never really conquered to my satisfaction. Time to change that. I don't want to hit 40 with this issue unresolved. I didn't want to hit 30, or 35, or any other age with it unresolved either, but I didn't make the commitment necessary to make it change. So now is the time...for change I can believe in, and make happen.

And my small habit change for the day is actually a big one - drinking more water. Everyone says it is vital to health and weight loss, but I just hate drinking water. I have to re-frame it - I like achieving the goal of drinking more. It's good for me. So each day I'm going to try and drink more until I get to 8-10 glasses a day, every darn day.

Although I haven't been exercising yet, I've been paying attention to my diet - not rigorous portion control yet, but healthy, vegetable based meals and trying to move away from pasta, etc. and no desserts. So far I've been losing a few pounds and that's good. I am encouraged that even with only a little effort (no more soy creamer in coffee, no more dessert, no more bagels and cream cheese, etc.) I'm getting started on getting a little weight loss going. I hope I can move the trend consistently down