Friday Featured Blogger - Briy - Bikinki Bound
Friday, April 11, 2008
Sometimes we read a post and it just breaks it all down in such a way that you're left saying YES thats EXACTLY what I needed to hear and HOW I needed to hear it to make it click in my brain. Several people pointed me to this post for just that reason and after I read it, I had to agree, Briy packed a powerful message into her post and she said it in several thought provoking ways.
Don't take my word for it, head on over to Briy - Bikini-Bound's blog and check it out for yourself! I've also posted the entry below for future reference.
Thank you Briy for this amazing post!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There were a few things rolling around inside my head that I was thinking about blogging tonight, but today my thoughts have been pretty consumed by the following quotation:
"People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved."
This is one of the quotes I gathered on a copy&paste spree last week. I only just today got around to cutting them out and sticking them around my room, and something about the above one just really resonated with me. It does so even more now that I went back to see who said it. Anne Sullivan. If you're like me, you went "Hey, that name sounds really familiar..." and then when you looked it up on Wikipedia, you felt a little dumb. Granted, teaching Helen Keller is a much more noble pursuit than weight loss, which is what I was going to talk about, but whatever... We can't all be Anne Sullivans.
I read Wendy McClure's I'm Not the New Me so many times in my early days in Korea (when I had very few other English books), that there are still a lot of phrases I can remember almost word-for-word. She's describing, sort of off-handedly, a few months when she's doing pretty well on Weight Watchers, and she says she's "going through the motions, faithfully trying to re-enact a week when I lost a pound." These days, since my new healthy lifestyle routine has become sort of... well... routine, I've stopped thinking about it. When I think about weight loss, or I look at that snazzy 55 pound bling on my sidebar, I sort of find myself wondering... How did that happen? Which just proves how accurate this quote is.
Sure, when I meet (or read blogs of) people who've lost 100+ pounds, it's amazing. I read the brief "My Weight Loss Story" link, and it all seems very inspirational and inevitable. But this quote makes me remember that really... it wasn't. They had to make a million correct decisions to get there. Day after day they forced themselves onto the treadmill or into the gym. Meal after meal they turned down the extra helping, threw away the chocolate. And each step, each decision, was so relatively unimportant. Passing on the dessert just once has almost no effect. But passing on that same dessert 20 days out of 30 in a month... how many pounds could that be? Like today I went to the gym and jogged/walked faithfully on the treadmill for 30 minutes, for a sum total of about 275 calories burned. But that's a drop in the hat. I have to do that same thing 6 times a week, and eat on-plan, to succeed in losing the week's allotted 1-2 pounds. Then repeat that, all the while upping the intensity, 49 times to lose 100 pounds. That's why each step is so "halting and painful" - because it is so small.
How hard is it to do the right thing 90-100% of the time when it takes at least a month to see demonstrable results in the mirror, and when the scale moves so slowly at a healthy rate? Those 2 pounds a week are exactly that... "insignificant success" in the grand scheme of my big goals. And it's not just that we can't see the "halting and painful steps" others are taking. Most of the time we aren't even aware of them ourselves. What if I congratulated myself, wholeheartedly, everytime I woke up at 5:30 to go to the gym? Usually I'm too tired to even think about why I'm doing this. I put on my clothes and drag myself through the dark, stick my headphones on and start lifting, trying to think of anything but the pain in my muscles.
What I should be doing instead is giving myself a pep talk. "Way to go, Briy. I can't believe you! You're on fire! A year ago you wouldn't have dreamed of getting out of bed at 5:30 for anything, let alone to lift weights. You're obviously serious about this weight loss thing. And this is the third time this week! I know you'll see those results soon. Just keep it up. Enjoy it!"
If I could be aware of every little thing I did right, instead of dwelling only on the things I did wrong, I'd be able to be proud of myself, justifiably. And I might enjoy my workouts a bit more, even the early morning ones. If only I could keep in mind that every cookie I don't eat, and every vegetable I do, is a penny in the bank account. Every minute I clock on the treadmill is an investment. What's that other quote? The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step? I just need to keep my eyes on the destination, and remember why I'm doing this.
4 comments:
Hanlie
said...
April 11, 2008 4:05 PM
Great post to end the week - and to go into the weekend with. Lot's to think about and I'll be back to re-read this a few more times this weekend when I have more time to think on it.
Sunny
said...
April 11, 2008 10:53 PM
Somehow I missed this post (and I usually hang on Briy's every word *g), so I'm especially grateful to you for posting it here.
Now, I'm off to keep an eye on Briy to make sure she's got this in action. :)
Cammy
said...
April 12, 2008 1:32 AM
I sure needed to read tis!
Lora
said...
April 15, 2008 12:10 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The more I read this, the more it's sinking in!