Sweat Once A Day

When I work out, I like to hit it hard.  I like intense workouts that really make your body sweat, and cry, and ache for a break.  Those are the kind of workouts that you can really pat yourself on the back for doing.  The kind that makes your body sore for the rest of the week, reminding you of how hard you worked.
The problem with that though, is that I've developed this little habit of thinking; if I'm not going to have time to hit it hard, then I might as well not work out at all that day.  It sounds awful, but it's essentially the truth.

This is why I like the lululemon manifesto so much.  It's filled with so many awesome truths... Among my favs are: 

"Life is full of setbacks.  Success is determined by how you handle them."

"What we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves"

"The conscious brain can only hold one thought at a time, choose a positive thought."

"That which matters the most, should never give way to that which matters the least."

"Jealousy works the opposite way you want it to."

"Do one thing a day that scares you."

"Sweat once a day."

I really like "Sweat once a day."  It's such a simple message isn't it?
It isn't, ... "Run 5K everyday", or "Do circuit training for an hour, followed by a step class once a day".  It's as simple as, SWEAT once a day.  You can do whatever you want, and the message isn't even "Sweat BUCKETS everyday."  It's just sweat.  So your job...really... is to just find out what your favourite way to sweat is....and then do that...or something like it, everyday.

I definitely love practicing Yoga which is why I chose this to be my 30day challenge.
What I love (and HATE) about this challenge though, is that I have to do it every.single.day.
No ifs, ands, or buts.  When it comes to weight loss, this has always been precisely the problem for me.  I never really made it a priority to "sweat once a day".  I had the will power to go on crazy diets, to avoid certain foods, and simply approach my weight loss by always treating food as the enemy.  The truth is, food is not the enemy.  Not the food we're supposed to eat anyway.  Food and eating in general is supposed to be nourishing for your mind, body, and soul.  It gives you strength... nutrients....vitality.  My relationship with food now is very different than it ever used to be.  After my mom died, food was my "friend."  I ate as much of it as I wanted, and only the tastiest of things.  It was my comfort.  Some people turn to alcohol, or drugs, or cigarettes in times like the one I went through.  I turned to chocolate and every kind of carb known to man.  *Drool.

After doing this for a solid couple of months and packing on 50 pounds, it's easy to make a very wrong correlation.  You assume that food + all that weight gain = food is your enemy.
But food isn't the enemy.  The enemy is the negative thinking going on inside you that made you "need" the food in the first place.  That's where the real work needs to be done.  That right there is the root cause of weight-gain.  Not the food.  You can't just go on a diet and deprive yourself of the one way you know how to make yourself feel better without attempting to treat the reason you need to do that in the first place.  This is why dieting always fails.  The only way to really get past this and make a break-through, is to start getting very REAL with yourself.

So now here I am, six years later, and finally in a place where I'm capable of recognizing what it looks and feels like to feel ...not "full", but satiated.  I can eat just because I'm hungry, instead of eating because I'm 100% bored, sad, or lonely.  I'm in a place where my weight can actually stay stable and so now the only thing left for me to do is to work out on a regular basis to take the rest of what I like to call my "bereavement weight" off for good.  

It's important for our bodies to move...and not just really hard one random day of each month, but everyday, even if it's just a little bit.

It's now Day 7 of my challenge and to be totally honest, my body feels great but I'm utterly EXHAUSTED!!!

I'm working lots (which is fantastic and oh so necessary... mama needs to pay the bills!) but I'm finding that my life is so jam packed at the moment that it really is hard to find time to do the yoga every.single.day....and then blog about it afterwards!  In fact, yesterday, I did World Champion's Hips, and then sat down at my computer to start writing about how it went, and I actually collapsed at my keyboard....hence, no Day 6 posting....

So as painful as this lesson is becoming, I am finding strength in the fact that in doing this challenge I am creating new, better, healthier habits for myself.  These are habits that I can carry through with me into my next year of studying medicine and ones that will help me see my goals through to completion.