What's the point of life? I mean, what makes a fulfilling life? I lamented yesterday that sometimes I feel like my biggest accomplishment is going to be losing weight. So far, it's the thing that seems to have gotten the most attention. In reflecting on what's really important, I keep coming back to this piece that came across my "thought for the day" camp files, way back before the Internet when people emailed these things or <gulp> photocopied and passed them around in the dark ages before the World Wide Web.

Maybe it stuck with me so profoundly because I read it as a teen, at a time when I desperately needed to hear the message. Maybe it's just the easiest way for me to live, because it measures success by something over which we have total control, all the time.

Life's about how you treat people. For me, it's as simple as that.

And it has nothing to do with the scale.

What's it all about?

Life isn’t about keeping score. It’s not about how many friends you have, or how many people call you. Or how accepted you are. Not about if you have plans this weekend, or if you’re alone. It isn’t about who you’re dating, who you used to date, how many people you’ve dated, or if you haven’t been with anyone at all. It isn’t about who you have kissed. It is not about sex. It isn’t about who your family is, or how much money they have. Or what kind of car you drive, or where you are sent to school. It’s not about how beautiful or ugly you are. Or what clothes you wear, what shoes you have on, or what kind of music you listen to. It’s not about if your hair is blonde, red, black, brown, or green. Or if your skin is too light or too dark. Not about what grades you get, how smart you are, how smart everyone else thinks you are, or how smart standardized tests say you are. Or if this teacher likes you, or if this guy/girl likes you. Or what clubs you’re in, or how good you are at “your” sport. It’s not about representing your whole being on a piece of paper and seeing who will accept the written you.

Life.  just.  isn’t.

But life is about who you love and who you hurt. It’s about who you make happy or unhappy purposefully. It’s about keeping or betraying trust. It’s about friendship, used as a sanctity or a weapon. It’s about what you say and mean, maybe hurtful, maybe heartening. About starting rumors and contributing to petty gossip. It’s about what judgements you pass and why. And who your judgements are spread to. It’s about who you’ve ignored with full control and intention. It’s about jealousy, fear, ignorance, and revenge. It’s about carrying inner hate and love, letting it grow and spreading it. But most of all, it’s about using your life to touch or poison other people’s hearts in such a way that could have never occurred alone.

Only you choose the way those hearts are affected.
We are just too powerful in life sometimes.

Last night I dreamed that I ate dessert. Like, a LOT of it. Creamy, sugary, caramel-y, not-even-sure-it-exists-in-real-life, desserts. Yeah, plural. In other words, I dream binged.

I don't often remember my dreams, so I don't know how often I dream about food or binging. Perhaps I just woke up in the middle of this one and so it stuck. I was in the throes of a full-on, no-holds-barred, Homer Simpson level binge.

It doesn't take a genius to interpret this kind of dream, but I looked it up anyway. "Binge" or "Binging" doesn't seem to be in most dream dictionaries, so I tried looking up "desserts" because that's what I was eating. Apparently, to dream about dessert "means that you are experiencing the benefits of satisfaction, fulfillment, or desire. You are taking pleasure in the positive events in life." Yet this was clearly not pleasurable. Even in my dream, I knew I was in a full-blown binge. I knew it was wrong. I felt the guilt and the shame.

Okay. Let's try looking up "food" or "eating" in dreams. "To dream that you are overeating or not eating enough signifies a lack of spirituality and fulfillment in your waking life. Food can represent love, friendship, ambition, sex or pleasure in your life. Thus, food is a metaphor to fulfill and gratify your hunger for love and desires." Hmmm. So, not so much an interpretive meaning as the exact psychological reasoning for waking eating. Using food to replace or compensate for feelings. Emotional eating will getcha every time, even in your subconscious.

Perhaps there's an even simpler explanation, which needs no interpretation: "If you are currently dieting in your waking life, then the dream may serve to compensate for the sustenance that you are lacking."

Getting away from dream interpretation or dream dictionaries, a quick search for dream binging pretty much leads you to forums where people talk about doing exactly what I did: dreaming about food. The most common forums are for eating disorders, while some are just your average diet sites. Either way, it's clear to me that this is not uncommon. The more you think about food during the day, the more your brain needs to process it while at rest. What is not clear is whether this is a healthy or unhealthy coping skill. Will dreaming about eating stem the tide of a waking binge, or will it trigger the hunger pangs and the thoughts that lead to a binge?

If eating in a healthy way does not come naturally or easily, (which, let's face it, is true for a lot of us), then it can be quite consuming - both consciously and subconsciously. At least I didn't dream that my food was consuming ME.

Keep going. Whatever point you're at, do what you can, the best that you can. That's the moral of the story. Yeah, I'm giving away the ending. If you don't want to bear with me as I recount some anecdotes from the past few days, then know that the thread that ties them all together is that you have to put one foot in front of the other, and keep going.

Though, I feel compelled to point out that if you don't have the patience to read a slightly longer-than-normal post, then the whole point of "KEEP GOING" may be lost on you in the first place.
Just sayin'.

Friday's Personal Training: when I said NO.
We were playing Hit the Deck in personal training, Captain America-style. Every suit was a different exercise, and the number on the card told us how many of each I had to do. Mat let me suggest some of the exercises, even though he adjusted them, made them more difficult and complex and tied them in to the new Captain America movie. (Bosu ball = the shield!). I deliberately requested push-ups, because a few days prior I was struggling with them. I seemed to have lost my strength, and my usual response is that if there's something that is hard, or something I don't like, that's exactly the thing I should be doing. But, half way through that game, a push-up card came up, and I said "no." Mat stared at me. "What do you mean, 'no'?" he demanded. I shook my head. "No." Next card. Push-ups. I got the look from him. He got a look back from me. The next few cards were all push-ups, and it became a standoff. He was trying to figure out what was going on. "Is it your shoulders?" Nope. "Your chest?" Nope. "Then do your push-ups!" Nope. In that moment, I couldn't articulate what was going on in my head, why I was digging in my heels and refusing to do pushups. I saw the wheels spinning in his brain, having never truly come up against my stubbornness before. It's like trying to pull the sword from the stone: not humanly possible unless I decide you're the person who can do it. Most of the time, I don't resist what Mat asks of me, even if I don't feel like doing it, because he's doing exactly what I've asked of him : he's coaching and training me. He finally kept going until we got a non-push-up card, but he set the ones I'd said "no" to aside. I was running out of steam through the whole thing, but was at least able to do the Russian twists and medicine ball slams and Bosu burpees. Sort of. He finished with the last card, then looked down at the ones he had set aside. "So, what are we going to do about these?" he gently asked. The sword budged a little.

"Mat, it's my gut," I said. We'd done measurements at the start of the session. He knew how bad things were, how many inches and pounds I'd put on. "I don't have the strength in my arms and chest to do all the pushups from my feet, and when I go to my knees, all I can see is my gut hanging down. I can feel it touching the ground. The tears were THIS close to the surface, and I just didn't want to cry in front of you." Deep breath.
Him: "How can you see your stomach? Why are you looking that far down?"
Me: "Peripheral vision."
Him: "Close your eyes!"
Me: "I did! I could still FEEL it."
Him: "Do you think you can do them from the Bosu ball?" he asked. I got into position to try. As I psyched myself up, he suggested that I could also do them off the wall. In other words, there were options and modifications. He just wanted me to DO them and finish. One card at a time. I did a card, using the Bosu ball. "Do you think you can do six more?" I did. Next card. "How about four?" Card by card, push-up by push-up, we finished the deck together. Mat pulled the sword from the stone.

He had a little bit of time before his next client. Now, most trainers would probably have said, "the hour's over, we're done" or "I need to grab a bite to eat and take a break." Instead, he said, "I have some time if you want to chat. We can go down to the consult room." When he asked what happened, I said, "do you know how long it's been since I've had to drop to my knees for push-ups?"
Mat told me, "It happens. It's okay!"
"No, it's not." (Stubborn stubborn stubborn).
"Yes, it really is."

And that's how we ended the session, with the understanding that it's okay to not be able to do something today that you were able to do yesterday, or last month. With a promise to come up with an action plan, and a check in of "are you really okay?" No shame, no guilt. Just one single reproach: "Next time, don't just tell me 'no.' Tell me why."

Saturday: Group Core class
Given how Friday had gone, I had little motivation to make it to the Saturday classes I had promised people I'd attend. I was up three hours early, and still only left myself ten minutes to get to the gym, rushing in fairly late. Kept putting it off. I did not want to be there. A lot was riding on having a good workout, mentally. Fortunately, I'm comfortable with the Group Core routines, and it was a familiar and friendly instructor. By the end, I felt back in the groove of things. I hadn't done the lateral pushups as cleanly as in the past, and I kept my feet down for half of the Russian twists, but it didn't matter. The scripts for the Group Core and Group Power classes include "options." The instructors give you options and let you know which one to take if you want more of a challenge, and which ones to try if you want less, and they leave it up to you. Because it's part of the script, there's no judgment and no shame, and really nobody is watching what you're doing, anyway. The modifications are slight, and are similar enough to what everyone else is doing. I left the class starting to feel like I was getting back to my old self.

I probably should have stopped there.

Saturday: Boot Camp
Twenty minutes after Group Core, the noon-hour boot camp started. I'd seen this class run, but had never taken it. Between work, personal training, or my social life, it just wasn't a class I could make it to. With other friends having announced they'd be there, it seemed like a good week to give it a shot. It was, unfortunately, also a week which was not representative of how it's usually run. The three volunteers who are known for that class were off. It was a pity, because they offer three levels of physical ability and therefore provide options to follow. As an observer, I thought the class seemed like one that could be taken by almost anyone, at any level of ability. On this day? Not so much. It was running. Like, a LOT of running. And when we weren't running, we were lunging, squatting, and generally doing high impact or knee-intensive motions. It only took about 20 minutes into the 60 minute class for my knees to start making their displeasure with me known. "We are not happy that you are torturing us! We are going to retaliate with pain! If you do not cease and desist, retribution will be swift!" I wanted to bail. I really really did. I just ... I couldn't. I had to keep going. I thought, "you've been in enough classes, you've been trained, you can figure out your own modifications, even if they're not providing suggestions." So, when the group ran back and forth from one side to the other, I thought "what is it they're wanting us to get out of this? Heart rate up? Okay. I'll do half-Jacks, the low-impact version of Jumping Jacks." Only, it was humiliatingly obvious that I was taking an option. I stood out like a sore thumb. As I walked in a circle, as quickly as I could while most of the other participants ran past me, another guy caught up to me and said, "this feels a lot like gym class." And I knew that he didn't mean it in a good way.

It was an eye-opening experience, because it had been a long time since I'd taken a class where I felt that way. Overly visible. Embarrassed. Other. It went against everything I've said about classes at the Y: that nobody is watching you, nobody is judging you. Whether they were or not, I sure felt like all eyes were on me. Not a good feeling.

Sunday: Swim
After the Saturday boot camp, my knees were killing me. Like, old-lady-needs-a-walker creaking and cracking KILLING me. I needed something low impact. I needed something I was good at. I needed to feel successful and invisible and confident all at the same time. So I went back to my roots, and got into the pool. It was lane swimming that got me going on the fitness journey, and it's my go-to at times like this when I need a re-set. Back to the basics. But I was reminded of how swimming got me over some big hurdles, both physically and metaphorically. One lane at a time. Don't think about how long you have been in the water, or how many lengths in total you have to do. Take it one lap at a time until you get to ten. And another ten. And another. And so on.

Come on, let's get to the point already!
On Friday, I resisted the idea that it was okay to take the option. I felt weak for even needing to. By Saturday, I was wishing that options were provided. In both cases, it was my pride that got in the way. All mental. And in both cases, the key was not whether I could do the entire class at full intensity, it was to finish. To keep going. To do my best with what I had in that moment. It may not have been my all-time best, but that doesn't matter. Mat knew it. He didn't care how well I did or how many I did, I think he just knew that it was important that I finish (or else he'd be facing some much bigger mental hurdles to have to coax my butt through in the future).

If you want to change, you have to put one foot in front of the other. The only alternative is to stay stuck.

Keep. Going.

A slump or "plateau" is not the same as self-sabotage, but they often look the same. When you've been fighting with your weight as long as I have, yo-yo'ing up and down, you start to notice some patterns. I'm in that "on the way back up" phase, where I know I am reverting to old habits, even though I'm not sure why. It's easy enough to point to a more chaotic and stressful period, and a lack of healthy coping skills. Except that I haven't been dieting this time. I've actually been changing lifestyle and habits. So, why do I find myself driving out of my way to get a chocolate bar, or caving in to the voice saying "you NEED that piece of cake"?

Self-sabotage.
Not easy to understand, but apparently a far more common thing than one would think.
In psychological terms, it is cognitive dissonance. Holding opposing beliefs, where the more deeply held belief wins out in the end.

When I hit a big mental wall several months ago, Mat sent me the article below. It was the first time I'd heard such a rational explanation for what seems like an irrational behaviour. The dark side to weight loss that people don't talk about. I revisited the link this week, especially for the reminder of the action options at the very end. What has been interesting and helpful about blogging is how often people say "it's like you are writing about MY life" or "I'm going through the same thing." I know I'm not the only one in a self-sabotaging slump at the moment. In fact, there's a pretty big circle of friends who are actively reaching out and saying "I need help and support and accountability" and I'm like "yeah! me, too - let's get through this together." Maybe it's the interminable winter catching up to us, mentally. Maybe it's that 3-months-past-New-Years-resolutions stage. Maybe it's just a period of change, the lull after the hype and focus of Megathon and March Break when there's a void to fill until the next big project starts. Or, maybe - as Mat suggested - it's just time for a vacation, a change, a shake-up of routine.

Whatever it is, I'm not panicking nearly as much as I did the last time I hit this point in the cycle. I have faith that I'll get myself out of it, if I can just ride it out. Keep showing up at the gym and maintain the habit, even if I'm not enjoying it quite as much or bringing the intensity. Keep trying with the eating, even if I slip - hell, even if I landslide half way down the mountain. In the past, I'd have given up. Let the yo-yo go all the way back to the top and then some. Now? I have better tools. I have support. I have patience to work my way back into the better habits that I had built because they were made on a more solid foundation.

And I understand that I'm not alone in this self-sabotaging behaviour. I just gotta figure out what belief is lurking beneath the surface, what the source of the cognitive dissonance really is.

Without further ado, the article to which I am referring:
"Your body reframed" by Pilar Gerasimo, from Experience Life (an online magazine).

It took a lot of hard work and focused choices. But here you are — perhaps weeks or months into your fitness program — and you’re beginning to see and feel some real results. You’re looking leaner and more fit. Your clothes are fitting looser. You’re feeling lighter, standing taller, moving faster on your feet. Hey, you’re seeing a whole new person when you look in the mirror!

And then, something strange happens. Suddenly, perhaps subtly, you find yourself making choices you used to make, resuscitating less-than-healthy behaviors you thought you’d given up. Bit by bit, you start reclaiming that loose space in your clothing and retreating into the more familiar look and feel of your former, less-fit self.

So what gives? People get derailed from what appear to be successful fitness and weight-loss programs for all sorts of reasons, of course. In some cases, life circumstances or unrealistic expectations are to blame. In other cases, people burn out on overaggressive regimens, or simply fail to transition into sound maintenance programs. But there are also times when people abruptly reverse course for no apparent reason.

In such cases, there’s often an unconscious factor at work, and for anyone who has been working intently toward a fitness goal, the unraveling of all that hard won progress can be both a maddening and mystifying thing to behold. It may seem as though we have a divided self, with one part of us willingly doing the work of getting in shape, and the other part of us busily deconstructing our progress while we’re not looking.

This, according to cognitive psychologist Michael Hall, PhD, is a classic case of “cognitive dissonance,” a psychological phenomenon that arises whenever an individual holds two opposing (i.e., dissonant) thoughts, beliefs, values or goals. In many cases, explains Hall, one of our opposing ideas — or “frames of thought,” as he calls them — might be far less conscious than the other, but still surprisingly powerful. “If left unexamined,” he says, “our unconscious frames may compel us to act in ways we don’t entirely understand — ways diametrically opposed to our more conscious choices.”

A Method to the Madness
The key to understanding and dispelling such problems, according to Hall, lies in recognizing that some part of us is served — or at least thinks it is served — by our self-sabotaging actions. “One part of you may be committed to the idea of losing weight, and be motivated by the idea of looking more attractive and feeling more fit,” Hall explains. “But there may be another part of you that’s not at all convinced this unfamiliar state of being is safe or desirable. It experiences the change as a threat — a danger or challenge to another important value — and so it acts to reverse it.”

When it comes to issues of body shape and body image, though, we may find such reversals particularly perplexing. Why on earth, we might wonder, would any part of us not want to be in the healthiest, most attractive body possible?

Hall, co-founder of the International Association for Neuro-Semantics (www.neurosemantics.com) and coauthor of several books, including Games Slim and Fit People Play  (Neuro-Semantic Publications, 2001) and Secrets of Personal Mastery  (Crown House, 2000), explains this phenomenon in terms of “meaning” and “performance.” We attach meanings — interpretations, judgments, emotional associations — to everything we experience, he says, and then we perform, or behaviorally act out, those meanings in our everyday lives.

“The challenge,” he notes, “comes when we simultaneously associate two different or opposing meanings to a single experience, but don’t fully recognize that.” The meanings we attach to our bodies, in particular, Hall says, tend to be deeply personal, powerful and complex. We might have both very positive and very negative associations, for example, with the idea of an attention-getting figure, he explains. On the one hand, we may crave that kind of attention, and desire the benefits it confers. On the other, we might hold a deep-seated belief that people with attractive bodies are superficial, or we might dread the idea of being perceived and judged in relation to our appearance. Regardless of our conscious desires, Hall says, we’ll typically wind up acting out whatever meanings are most deeply held, or operating more actively, at any given time.

The challenge is that in many cases, we don’t even realize we hold a negative meaning until some triggering aspect of a given experience presents itself. Or worse, we never recognize it at all, but we react to it just the same. “Let’s say you decide to lose some weight and get in shape,” Hall says. “Consciously, because you attach many positive meanings to being slim and healthy, you perform those meanings by making positive lifestyle choices like exercising more and eating better.” Initially, you might be comfortable — even elated — about your progress. But then, as your body takes on unfamiliar characteristics, you may experience some unanticipated (and subtly disconcerting) reactions.

“Perhaps, as the result of your new appearance and fitness level, you begin to feel more sexually attractive and more confident,” Hall says. “Even though you might consciously attach many positive meanings to your desired state of thinness, if you have a more powerful, subconscious belief system that says getting sexual attention isn’t safe, or if you associate confidence with arrogance, or with the risk of being criticized, those beliefs may make the experience of your new thinness feel dangerous and deeply unappealing.”

As long as the unconscious, negative associations carry more import and meaning than your conscious desire to be thin, Hall asserts, they’ll cause you to begin performing those meanings — typically in ways that undermine your former, fitness-oriented behaviors.

Identifying the Disconnect
Whether you’ve self-sabotaged your fitness efforts in the past, or just want to guard against it happening in the future, your first step toward dismantling patterns of destructive mental processing is to learn to recognize them when they are happening.

To that end, make regular mental and emotional check-ins a part of your fitness plan. If you notice you’re feeling weird, uncomfortable or disoriented in your body, or if you identify that you’re engaging in a behavior that seems contrary to your chosen goals, get quiet for a moment. Go inward and ask yourself: What’s going on? What feelings or assumptions are operating now, and how do they support or oppose my most conscious priorities?

Hall refers to this moment of mindfulness as a “choice point” — a time when you can elect to either elevate your chosen frames and meanings, or let them be overridden by less conscious choices.

Using the suggestions in “Friendly Frames” as a starting place, take an inventory of your responses to both physical- and emotional-level changes. As you get into the habit of noticing what beliefs, reactions or assumptions are operating at a given time, you’ll become more adept at identifying your personal patterns, and at devising solutions for removing the psychological obstacles in your way.

FRIENDLY FRAMES:
Losing excess weight and getting more fit are generally thought of as causes for celebration. But some of the changes associated with these successes require an adjustment period — and some conscious integration. Here are just a few of the subtle physiological shifts that you might experience as your physique evolves, along with some observations from cognitive-behavioral psychologist L. Michael Hall, PhD — plus some “reframing” suggestions for getting your brain on board with the choices you’ve made for your body.

AS YOU LOSE WEIGHT. . .

• VISIBLE CHANGES in body shape and size often invite outside attention and comment. This can leave you feeling more “on stage” and inspected than you find comfortable. You may have mixed feelings about being more attractive, and particularly about attracting attention from the opposite sex.
• LOSING A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT of weight might make you feel smaller, more delicate and more fragile than before. Or, it may make you feel taller and more commanding. Either perception can create a sense of unease.
• EVEN A MODERATE AMOUNT of fat loss can make you feel “loose in your skin.” As your fat cells deflate and the volume of subcutaneous fat (the fat between skin and muscle) diminishes, you may feel that your skin is sagging, and that you can more easily “pinch inches.” As a result, you may feel somehow less fit and solid than before, and feel drawn to reversing course. Feeling “too much space” in your clothing can prompt a similar reaction.
• IF YOU COME FROM a family of overweight people, or have mostly overweight friends, you may suddenly feel you are “leaving your tribe” or abandoning some aspect of your identity.
• DEPENDING ON YOUR BONE STRUCTURE, age and skin elasticity, your face may look more mature as the result of being thinner. Conversely, it may look more youthful or take on an altered expression. Seeing an unfamiliar face in the mirror can be a disconcerting experience — even if you like the general effect.

AS YOU BECOME MORE FIT. . .

• PUTTING ON ADDITIONAL MUSCLE may make you feel more solid and more substantial than you have in the past, which can challenge long-held notions of personality and identity. Feeling stronger and more confident may inspire you to become more assertive, or it may make you feel that you’re “taking up too much space.”
• SUDDENLY HAVING MORE ENERGY than you know what to do with can make you feel restless, nervous, unsettled — and perhaps called to make larger life changes than you’re comfortable with now.
• FEELING MORE SPACE AND POWER in your lungs may give you a giddy emotional high, but also leave you feeling a little vulnerable, “untethered” or ready to “lift off” at times.
• BECOMING MORE VISIBLY FIT, muscular and physically admired may present an unanticipated shift for people who previously identified primarily with nonphysical or physically retiring aspects of their personality (those who’ve presented a “purely intellectual” or “shy violet” persona, for example).

TRY THESE REFRAMING TIPS . . .
AS PHYSICAL CHANGES OCCUR, make a point of acknowledging any emotional reactions or associations (positive or negative) they might trigger. Journal about your responses and insights and how you feel in your body from day to day. Talk with friends or peers who’ve gone through similar experiences. Ask yourself whether any negative meanings you might be assigning to the changes you’re experiencing deserve to be overtly challenged and “reframed” in more positive terms.

REMEMBER THAT SOME OUTCOMES (such as loose-feeling skin) may only be temporary, and others (such as too-big clothes) are eminently changeable. If you sense you are undermining important goals because of minor, passing or circumstantial discomforts, take steps to correct them (i.e., replace your clothes or have them altered), or make a conscious choice to wait out temporary discomforts in favor of your higher goal.

CONSIDER PLACING AFFIRMATIVE REMINDERS about your choices in places where you’ll see them on a daily basis. Spend a little time each morning and evening directing supportive, appreciative thoughts toward your changing body.

USE VISUALIZATION TECHNIQUES to get comfortable with your new-and-improved self — as you are now, and as you might be down the road. Imagine yourself going through all your daily motions at your healthiest and most fit.

KEEP IN MIND that more significant adjustments in appearance may represent more significant challenges to your frames of reference. Getting comfortable with feeling more attractive, confident, powerful, and so on, may require deep self-reflection and integration over time. If you think you would benefit from some coaching or counseling in addressing such challenges, seek them out.

MOST OF US do not see our own bodies as others see them. If you suspect you have a distorted body image, or suffer from a body-image disorder, seek counsel from a qualified medical professional or psychologist.

The weight loss battle can be very lonely. It's you versus yourself. Sure, you build up your army of support warriors: the people who hold you accountable, the ones who work out with you, the coaches and trainers and instructors and friends. But, at the end of the day, it all comes down to you. Nobody can do it for you. Nobody can make you do it. And sometimes the people you rely on to get you through have battles of their own and aren't there right when you need them to be. You face your enemy alone.

It is in these moments that you have to decide how badly you want it. When it would be easy, so very very easy, to give yourself any excuse to give up and quit. To stop fighting. To concede defeat.

I'm at such a point, myself. Where life is testing me, seeming to throw one thing after another after another in the way. I want to lay down my sword and rest. But there are no guards at the door, no defense line left. And the enemy is attacking.

My enemy is Control. Well, a lack of control over myself or the changes happening around me, to be specific. When I have a say in the decision, whether the change is positive or negative, I find it easier to deal with than when I have no control at all. It's not always about change or choices, it's just life happening and stuff you need to deal with, and it all comes at once. And when it's one thing, I can usually take it in stride. Two things? I get stressed, but it's not visible. (Exercise often helps). Three? I get tense, you can tell, but I cope. When it feels like too many things changing, or too much is out of control, when life bombards me with capital-T "TOO MUCH" from every direction, so that there's no safe place, no sanctuary - then I start to revert back to old habits. The ones which were in lieu of healthy coping mechanisms. Binge eating. Drinking to relax. Sleeping as avoidance technique. Shutting down completely. Playing the victim, rolling over, and letting the enemy run me through instead of fighting, my old habits made me the expendable character with no name who died in the first scene. Mixing my cultural references, I was the Star Trek Red Shirt in my own life.

I don't want to play the victim.
I want to be the hero in my own story.

It's why I talk so much about strength, and use imagery of warriors, fighters, superheroes and ninjas. The bad-asses of storytelling. This journey often feels like a fight, an ongoing war, where you win some battles, and some you lose, but you hope to come out stronger and victorious in the end. Physical strength grows emotional strength. And that new-found mental strength has gotten me through a lot in the last few years.

Perhaps that's why I'm being challenged, now. I may have gotten too comfortable, too complacent, relying on my army. Life is forcing me to answer the question: "how badly do you want this?"

When I have regular classes I attend at the Y, and all my personal training sessions booked, and life at work and at home is under enough control that I take the time to plan meals and write down what I'm eating in my food journal, it's much easier to deal with all the other little things that crop up. As more got piled on my plate recently (figuratively, not literally), it was the food journal that was the first thing to go. Some sleep was forfeited, as more obligations piled on. But, no matter what's been going on at work or in my personal life, I've been able keep my workout schedule as a priority. My big rocks. Now? I may be in a position where it's not possible to make all the classes I've grown fond of, or to make it to classes at all. (The short version is an aging parent with a broken arm/shoulder, and I'm not sure how much assistance she will need over the next 6 weeks, and that's just one of the last straws on top of a very large pile that has been building).

I have to ask myself how badly do I want this, the health and strength?

This is life's test. I've been metaphorically squatting with a bar on my shoulders for quite some time, weight added bit by bit. There's a fine line between when the weight is too much and your knees buckle and the whole thing crashes down on you ... or you summon all the strength you have and you push from your heels to lift that weight and get a personal best. I have no way of knowing when I'll break, and when it's making me stronger.

Kinda feels like the breaking point is coming. Maybe it already has.

But what I mean by being challenged is that this is where I put my money where my mouth is. Will I still workout when it's not easy, when it's late at night and past all the classes, when nobody is around and there's no motivation, no accountability, no personal trainer planning a program? Can I really do it on my own? Will I let a lot of legitimate reasons become excuses, or will I find a way to keep my health a priority? Can I stop the spiral of emotional eating and keep to clean, whole foods (no sugar! no chemicals! no processed crap!), even when under pressure? (The Ghrelin Gremlins are part of my enemy's army, and they seem to be multiplying).

This perhaps sounds melodramatic, and maybe half the problem is that I see fitness and weight loss as a fight in the first place. My goal is to make it so much a part of my lifestyle that it's just a natural habit that I don't even think about. I was almost there. I think that regardless of how much stress you're under in life on a regular basis, there always comes a period when it gets to be too much. (Knowing that everyone goes through it doesn't necessarily help when you're in the thick of it, but it keeps things in perspective). And the rational part of my brain accepts the oxygen mask on the airplane analogy, that you have to take care of yourself first in order to take care of others. Still, it feels so selfish. It's pretty hard to justify putting yourself first when so much else is needed of you.

I don't know what the answer is. Parents everywhere face this problem daily. I have been pretty lucky, spoiled even, to have had the luxury of making exercise a priority and fitting it into my schedule easily. And, despite reverting back to emotional eating lately, I haven't had the additional hurdle of having to accommodate other people's nutrition or eating habits.

Yet, the war rages on around me.
It's a war for control.

No matter what form the enemy at the door takes, I have to remember that the only weapon I've ever truly had has been my response to it. I can't control when people get sick (myself included). I can't control when training gets cancelled. I can't control when the landlord needs entry or when they decide to do (unwanted) renovations. I can't control changes at work. I can't control what is needed to be done. I can't even control my emotional response to it all (the tears will come, unbidden, at the worst possible time; so does the beet-red blushing). The only thing I can control are my actions. My response is my weapon.

Time to sharpen the sword and get ready.
This hero has to defend herself.

I had the chance to do an extra Group Core class the other night, as an instructor-in-training had to submit a video to get certified. It was in the studio, where there are mirrors. I realized how long it's been since I've taken a class where mirrors are around, and what a difference they make. Not in a good way.

Mirrors are supposed to show us a reflection of what IS. No judgment, just reality. I'm not sure they actually work that way, though. Do we really see ourselves as we are, or can mirrors play mind games too? When I have to watch myself in a mirror, I focus way too much on how I look. Without mirrors around, I give far more effort because in my head I look like everyone else around me. Or I am much thinner in my mind than I am in real life. Or I don't realize what is bouncing, jiggling, riding up, or hanging out. In fact, I don't focus at all on what I look like, only on what I'm doing, when there are no mirrors.

In particular, with Group Core, there is a lot of lying-on-the-ground moves. Planks, pushups, burpees - where you're facing down, and gravity's pulling every saggy part as low as it will go. Then you flip onto your back for crunches, leg lifts, or Russian twists. It never occurred to me what I look like doing these kind of moves, until I handed my camera to Mat one day and said "I need pictures for Megathon and the blog." And when I looked at them, I realized with horror what he has to look at when I'm doing hip bridges, tricep skull crushers, and presses. All I can say is "dude, I'm sorry! Some days your job sucks." Gravity's no friend to the double chin, even when you're lying on your back.

Working out's not really supposed to be pretty, though. And when I focus on what I look like when I do it, I'm definitely not paying attention to form. Which is why it's a good thing that mirrors are not often around.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder is at one extreme end of the spectrum, and is when a preoccupation with how the body looks, or dissatisfaction with a specific body part, interferes with your life. Most people have some part of themselves they're not happy with, but they don't fall at the disorder end of things. I don't have the disorder, but I can check off enough of the symptoms that I can admit I'm closer to that end of the spectrum than the healthy body image end. What I am never certain of is whether I am seeing a true reflection, or whether my mind is distorting the image. Is my gut really as big as it looks to me? Does everyone else get as repulsed as I do? Or, when I was well on my way to 300 pounds, did I actually notice or acknowledge how big I had gotten? I rather think my mind didn't let me see just how bad it was. I imagined myself smaller. And, in a way, that was a positive thing because it meant that I didn't limit myself as much as I otherwise might have. I still did things. I was still active if I had to be, if it meant socializing, if it was out of necessity (like every time I moved and had to carry furniture and boxes). If I'd thought too much about what my body actually looked like in a bathing suit, I never would have gotten into the pool again. When your mind lets you forget what you look like and your imagination kicks in, and you think you are stronger, leaner, faster than you really are, it allows you to perform better.

Self-perception is everything.
And reflective surfaces are a big part of that.

After a discussion and training session in pre-camp one summer, all about recognizing eating disorders (something which can get triggered when you put a group of girls together in close quarters for 2 or 4 weeks, bathing suits are often worn, boys are around, and food is hard to control on an individual level), we made one significant change in the girls' bathroom. We took out the full-length mirror. It was pointed out that girls were spending too much time checking themselves out in it. And it was placed in a spot that you couldn't avoid: as soon as you walked in, you saw yourself. So, that mirror was taken down, and replaced with a smaller mirror, hung in a less convenient spot, and used primarily for faces. (Counting bug bites!). If girls at camp need to check themselves out, they can only do so bit by bit, with small hand-held mirrors. It's one of the smartest and simplest things ever done to address the focus on body image in young children and tweens.

Could you do it? Could you go without checking yourself in the mirror? One woman did - for an entire year. A year which included her wedding! I stumbled across her blog - Mirror, mirror, off the wall - which has also been turned into a book. I feel a reading binge coming on, going back through two years of her blog posts!

Mirrors play a significant role in how we see ourselves. Over-checking can lead to some deep-seeded body image issues. A study done on ballet students found that despite mirrors helping to improve form, they also increased comparison and body dissatisfaction in dancers at high-performance levels.

From a social perspective, mirrors are not mere physical reflections; what our brain sees depends on what we believe others will see. We attach meaning and social construct to our reflection:

Whenever possible, when I work out, I avoid the mirror or my reflection in the window. It's not actually that hard to do. Even when a mirror is in front of me, I try to look waaaaay up, down, or away. When I have to look at myself, in the mirror, it's to evaluate my form. It's only when my reflection catches me off-guard, as it did in filming that Group Core video, or occasionally in spin class when I am bent over with my gut spilling out, that it leads me down the path of disgust and self-loathing.

It's a complex psychological phenomenon. I am finally at a point where I like who I am, even if I don't like what I see. At least there's a solution: stop looking in the mirror so much and put the effort on building up the reflection, the image, that is in my head. Fix that, and what I see in the mirror may change. Or it may simply cease to matter so much.

I’m sticking with the motivation theme that seems to have emerged this week. I guess it's appropriate, since we'll be talking about it in Fitness Academy. I keep waffling back and forth between writing about a competitive spirit as motivator, and about self-affirmation as a technique. And then I realized that the two have something in common: confidence. Belief in the self.

Actual conversation last night:
Fitness Coach Mat: "I want you to blog about this."
Me: <panting, out of breath, carrying a sandbag> "What? About this workout you came up with, on training like an Olympian?"
Mat: "Yeah. I like to see my name. Use it a lot. I want it out there."
Me: <rolls my eyes so hard they almost fall out of my head> "You just read the blog to see if I mention you?"
Mat: "Pretty much."

Cocky little bugger, isn't he?

He's the same dude who said nonchalantly awhile ago, "I think I'm sick because I'm so full of awesome it's leaking out of me." And then he sneezed. 

Where does that kind of confidence come from? It’s easy enough to say that you just have to believe in yourself, but the basis for it must come from something concrete, like skill and ability. Or does it? This feels like a chicken and egg thing: do you grow your ego because you’re just naturally awesome, or do you become awesome by believing you are? 

Belief is the key, here. I used to say that I was not a competitive person, that I didn’t care about winning or losing. What I really meant was that I wasn’t competitive when it came to sports, because I knew I couldn’t win. I wasn’t any good. Had I really been honest, I’d have realized long ago that I am an extremely competitive person. It’s just that my focus was on being the best in areas that I was confident I could easily excel in, like academics. Aim for the highest mark on a test, aim to win a debate, aim to be accepted on selective committees, aim to raise the most money. (Ahem: shameless Megathon plug for donations!). I downplayed any sense of competition in areas that I wasn’t confident I could do well in immediately, without practice. 

But each of the times that I have pushed myself the hardest this year, each time I broke through a barrier to realize I could do more than I ever let myself imagine, it was because of competition. It doesn’t matter whether it’s who lost the most in Biggest Loser (the small group  training, not the tv show), or who could hold a plank the longest, or whether I could push a tire over on someone stronger than me. If there’s a chance to win, to earn pride points, I’m in. Prizes are irrelevant. I wanna be the best. So I push. And that has translated into competing against myself, too. Can I do better than last time? 

Which brings me back to last night’s workout. Mat has figured this out about me: give me a challenge, and I’ll work harder. So, we did 4 rounds of 6 exercises, each of which was to represent an Olympic sport. Running with the Olympic theme, the goal was to beat my own time. First round established the base line. 8 minutes. Next round? Can I do better? Yup. 7 minutes. Next round? I was tired. I was wearing a 10 lb weighted vest. I was sweaty. The hour seemed to be dragging on. Muscles were burning and I was breathing hard. Self-doubt kicked in. Somewhere in my head I thought “whatever, it’s just a game.” Mat asked “where’s that competitive athlete spirit?” and I replied,“I think the athlete has left the building.” 7:40 minutes. Ouch. But I knew the next round was the last one. I knew I didn’t have to save my energy for anything else. “Come on, go for the Gold. I’ll sing O Canada if you win,” he said. So on the fourth round, I gave it all I had. And I did it in 6:30. 

Mat owes me a rendition of O Canada. 

Competition gives me a reason to try, a reason to bring the intensity. That’s pretty motivating, because the more effort I put in, the more results I see, which builds more confidence. And the more confident I become, the easier it is to start to believe in myself, which in turn provides more motivation to draw upon. 

And yet I still tend to downplay my accomplishments, as so many women do. Another anecdote from last night happened in the spin class I took before the personal training. Girl wears a t-shirt from a 10 km race she’d run. Instructor asks: “Did you run 10 K?” Girl replies, “welllll … it was awhile ago … not anything recent …” and the instructor stops her and asks again. Yes. Yes, she has run 10 K in her lifetime. Why do we deny and downplay? It’s not humility. Give me a compliment and instead of saying “thank you” I’ll give you all the reasons why it doesn’t really count. 

Guys don’t tend to do this as much. (Yes, that’s a generalization. Roll with me, here). I don’t keep bringing up Mat just because he likes seeing his name. (Mat Mat Mat Mat Mat. You’re welcome). It’s because he embodies what I see in a lot of male friends and relatives: a belief that he can do anything, and do it well. It’s not an attitude I see in many of my female relationships.   

Apparently that’s not just coincidence. Brain research shows that the hormone fluctuations that women experience once a month “make a woman more sensitive to emotional nuance, such as disapproval or rejection. The way you interpret feedback from other people can depend on where you are in your cycle.” Hmmm. Well. That’ll be important to remember the next time I hit a wall. And it explains a little bit about why women exhibit more self-esteem issues than men. (Again. Generalization acknowledged). 

So, what’s the solution? Men and women may motivate ourselves differently, but we still have to work at building confidence and believing in ourselves. Understanding how our brains are working against us gives us the tools to fight the negative voices, not a free pass to give up and give in to them.

I’ll let you in on one of Mat’s secrets. He talks to himself in the mirror and tells himself how awesome he is. I laughed when he let that tidbit slip, because all I could picture was Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live:

But Mat’s no dummy. Self-actualization works. I think you have to give it time, because if you don’t initially believe what you’re saying, it sounds like a load of cheesy crap. The more times you tell yourself something positive, the easier it becomes to believe it. When I’ve tried it half-heartedly, I have felt silly and stupid, like I was lying to myself. That’s probably an indication of how badly I needed to continue saying nice things out loud, but I didn’t. 

However, what’s been happening these last two years as I’ve changed my body, slowly, is that I’ve also been changing my brain chemistry. Whether it’s through self-actualization techniques, through competing and winning, or better –competing and losing! – there’s undoubtedly been growth and change in my thinking patterns. The confidence built each time I can do one more pushup than the day before translates into overall confidence. 

What better motivation is there than believing in your self?

I had a friend tell me, half-jokingly, last week, "you de-motivate me, seeing your posts of when you go to the gym." She was referring to the Facebook group for My Gut Tells Me, where those who are participating in the 55-Day Challenge post how they've been active each day. And although she was sort of kidding, she also sort of wasn't. "Makes me think to myself, 'Man, she's doing all THAT and here I am with my measly 15 minutes of dog walking."

I get it. I really do. Because not only did I use to feel that way about people who exercised, who enjoyed it, who felt the need to move and be active, I still sometimes feel that way about people who eat healthy. They make it look so easy, it's infuriating. I find it nearly impossible to believe that they truly enjoy it, or that their body craves it, because I have to work so hard at forcing myself to do it. And there is still a voice in my head that sometimes wakes up and says, "you're doing ALL THIS ... and you still look like THAT? What's the point?"

Yeah. She's a raging bitch.

We all hit a mental wall sometimes. I hit it hard back at the end of November. After a weigh-in that caught me off guard, with results I really was unprepared for, I just about gave up. I had a terrible hour with Mat because I was grumpy, frustrated, and distracted by trying to decide whether I had the nerve to walk out and throw in the towel completely. I might have, had I been doing this on my own, without a fitness coach to break the fall.

See, I had lost sight of my original mantra: this is not about weight, it's not about body size, it's not about looks, it's about getting healthy, fit and strong. But I had also been gaining and losing the same 10 lbs for pretty much the whole year. I'd had a really good week, both with food and with exercise, and I went in to that training hour happy and confident. And then I stepped on the scale, and the measuring tape came out, and it all changed in an instant. Old Me, who'd been pretty quiet for quite awhile, woke up with a vengeance.

"This isn't working. It's not worth the monumental effort. Why are you bothering, when you're not seeing results? You are going to have to keep doing this for the rest of your life. It is exhausting. What if this is as good as it gets? You're too broken to fix. All the kings horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again." I was not on a plateau. I was on a wall. A wall I'd just fallen off of then dizzily run into head first. 

Blogging about my experiences has been one way of smashing through that wall. There will be others, of course, along the way. I'm just trying to get past this latest one, by leaving myself breadcrumbs of hope, which I can follow when (not if) I hit another wall. It should make it easier to find my way back. As a result, my blog posts have been more or less positive. My Facebook statuses talk about what I do. Having to write and reflect in an uplifting way is motivating for ME. But I realized, with that comment about de-motivation, that I'm showing only one section of a carefully cropped picture. You're not seeing the whole scene.

What you don't see is how hard it is to get out of a warm, cozy bed during a cold snap and winter blizzard when it's still dark out. How many times I hit "snooze" before I finally get going, late and frantic and forgetting things. 

What you don't see are the days I talk myself out of going at all, negotiating and promising that I'll just do a home workout, or I'll go after work, until the day has passed and I've done only the bare minimum - or nothing at all! -  when I had planned on doing much much more. 

What you don't see is how hard the food choices are for me, how much energy is depleted over the day by using up my willpower over and over again, until it's all gone and I go home at night and eat and eat and eat. 

What you don't see is the frustration I feel when I stand in front of the mirror. Or the tears.

What you don't see is the war in my head between New Me and Old Raging-Bitch, sparring round after round, dancing between "we can do this, we're strong, we're tough, we're worth it" and "puh-leeze, you fraud, you're never gonna be good enough."

What you don't see, when I show you only the part of the picture that is well lit, are the dark corners that were over or under exposed, edges damaged by rough handling and water stains.

I never meant to make any of this seem like it's easy for me, or that it should be easy for anyone. It's not. I don't want to de-motivate someone from doing what they can, where they can, because they are comparing themselves to me. I've lived on that road for too long, and even though I find myself back at the intersection of comparison and envy every so often, looking at others and assuming it's easy for them, I don't want to give that illusion myself.

It's not easy.
For anyone.

I've made this - fitness and health - a priority now because I didn't for so long. I'm coming from a really different place than a lot of people. What I've put my body through, both in gaining and in losing, is not comparable to someone who has gained a few pounds with age. The reasons the weight go on are significant. The percentage of weight to lose is significant. The physical abilities and limitations are significant. They're all factors in the journey. Which is why each of our stories is necessarily different.

Why look at me and think either "she can do it, so can I" or "look at what she's doing, I could never do that." Neither one is completely accurate.

The only constant is that it's hard for all of us. It's just hard in different ways.

So. What about that wall?
Well, sometimes you hit the wall.
Sometimes, you ARE the wall.
And sometimes, you find a way to smash through the wall and move on to the next one.

When I used the Humpty Dumpty reference on Mat, his response was "Then get off the wall." In other words, don't put yourself in the position to fall. Don't set yourself up for failure by living on the edge, or sitting on a wall in the first place. My wall was losing sight of my original goals and mindset. I'm taking that wall down, now.

The thing about Humpty was that he was passive. He relied on all the King's horses and men to rescue him, when he should have saved himself. No-one can do it for you. Put your own self back together again every time you fall, smash through your walls, and while you're at it, pick up a brick and chuck it at the raging bitch's head.

Oh YEAH.

Sometimes I use articles as a starting point for ideas, sometimes I link to them to support what I'm saying, and sometimes I'll come across something that makes so much sense as it is, I'll just share it. This is one of those days. I'll let Scott Christ from Health Habits explain mindset:

Use Your Mindset to Lose Weight, Get Fit, and Be Healthy

What Is “Mindset”? Mindsets are beliefs about yourself and your most basic qualities.

Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, who wrote a book called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, says there are two different types of mindsets: fixed and growth-oriented.

People with a fixed mindset think talent alone creates success. When faced with a challenge, they tend to take the easy way out to avoid failure and embarrassment. This is a psychological principle known as self-handicapping.

People with a growth mindset believe they can improve their abilities and create successes by working hard, practicing, and learning. They take on challenges even at the risk of failing. They embrace failure because they know they’ll learn valuable lessons from it.

How Mindset Affects Your Health
Research shows your mindset can profoundly impact your life—especially your health. Here are several studies that prove it.

In a study published in the journal Psychological Science, hotel cleaning crews were told that the work they do (cleaning hotel rooms) is good exercise and satisfies the Surgeon General’s recommendations for an active lifestyle. Subjects in the control group were not given this information. Four weeks later, the first group perceived themselves to be getting significantly more exercise than before. As a result, compared with the control group, they showed a decrease in weight, blood pressure, body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and body mass index. Mindset alone caused physiological changes in their body.

In another study published in the journal Health Psychology, participants were divided into two groups. Each group received a 380-calorie milkshake but one group was told they were drinking a 620-calorie “indulgent” shake and the other was told they were drinking a 140-calorie “sensible” shake.

The researchers then measured participants’ levels of ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates your brain to increase appetite.

Those who thought they drank the 620-calorie shake experienced a dramatically steeper decline in ghrelin after consuming the shake. The study authors concluded that “Participants’ satiety was consistent with what they believed they were consuming rather than the actual nutritional value of what they consumed.”

In other words, your mindset about a particular food can affect your hunger and levels of fullness. If your mind tells your body you’re drinking a “skinny” shake, you won’t feel as full. You CAN use your mindset to lose weight, get fit and be healthy.

Finally, in a study published in the journal Clinical Psychology Review that looked at the science of optimism, researchers found that an optimistic mindset can lead to better health outcomes too—optimistic people tend to be healthier on average.

So the science clearly tells us that your mindset can have a dramatic impact on your health. The question is, how do you change a mindset that may be holding you back?

This is what Dweck suggests in her book:

Step 1. Recognize fixed mindset thinking. Even if you have a growth mindset, that pesky little fixed mindset voice will sneak its way in once in a while. You know … the one that produces these types of thoughts:

• “I have bad genes, there’s no way I can lose that much weight.”
• “What if I fail?”
• “I don’t want to embarrass myself.”
• “I don’t have the willpower to stick with a healthy diet.”
• “I’m just not as smart/lucky/talented.”

When this happens, simply recognize and accept it. Then do this …

Step 2. Reframe negative, fixed mindset thinking with a growth mindset voice. Once you recognize a fixed mindset thought, you have a choice: believe those negative thoughts … or reframe them. For example:

• “No excuses this time … I’m getting started.”
• “If I fail, it’s okay. Great accomplishments don’t happen without risk.”
• “Forget diets. I’ll take it slow and making eating healthy a lifestyle.”
• “If I don’t know how to do something, I’ll learn.”

Step 3. Take action. Once you reframe a fixed mindset thought, the next step is to take action.

Here are some strategies that will help you: 

1. Write it down. One of the most effective ways to improve your philosophy and mindset is to keep a journal or planner. Use it to capture your thoughts, plan your day, and track your goals. For example, here’s what I do:

• At the start of every day I write a positive quote at the top of my daily planner (today’s quote is “Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it”).
• Next, I write down everything I plan to do over the course of the day to accomplish my goals (for example, “Write new blog post, network with 3 people, lift weights for 45 minutes, find recipe for healthy dinner”).
• Then, I evaluate what I accomplished at the end of each day.

Writing things down feels good, and it’s proven to help you cultivate positive mental and physical changes in your body. In one study, participants wrote for 20 minutes each day for three consecutive days about either a positive life experience or a control topic.

Three months later, the students who wrote about positive experiences had improved physical health and higher levels of focus—just from writing about it. That’s powerful stuff. If you want to change your mindset, write.

2. Embrace learning. We all consume massive amounts of information every day. You have a choice whether that information helps you or holds you back. Checking your Facebook page 10 times a day may be mindless fun, but what if you spent that time reading books that helped you cultivate a growth mindset?

Even if you don’t like to read, buy audio books and listen to them while you drive. Imagine the impact those books and others you’re interested in can have on your mindset over time.

3. Take calculated risks. Whether you want to start your own business or get in the best shape of your life, ask yourself this question: will you be better off by never starting or by taking a chance and risking failing?

It’s an easy answer. Embrace failure. Because it will give you the most valuable feedback in the world. The foundation of the growth mindset is the ability to learn from your failures and become a person who continuously improves.

On Carol Dweck’s website, she says, “Although people may differ in every which way—in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments – everyone can change and grow through application and experience.”

In other words, your mindset is like a muscle: the more you use it to both learn and focus on positive thoughts, the stronger it becomes.

Dream big but start small. Focus on your mindset first and you will open doors to anything and everything you want to accomplish in life….perhaps starting with losing weight, getting fit and being healthy.