It’s late, late on a Sunday December evening and I’ve been busy this past month with work, family and holiday planning.
I have spent the last few days deciding why I have had a serious pit stop on my Road to Healthy. How come many of us humans, as strong-willed as we are, find it so hard to struggle with our health and weight. I pass deer, turkeys, raccoons and other wildlife every day going to and from work and I’ve never once said to myself, “Gee that’s one obese deer.”
I hope as far as I’m concerned, I have discovered a breakthrough. I have been able to look back over the past year and analyze what caused me to be successful. And what also has caused me to fail.
The Wellness Challenge, Weight Watchers, this column and my Facebook page all helped me be successful. Was it just the act of going to meetings, writing, etc., that made me successful or was it something else?
What I have concluded is when my columns, meetings and online posts were revolving around something I had already accomplished, I was successful. When my activities began to be more about what I was going to accomplish or do, rather than what I was doing, I began to fail.
My initial Road to Healthy columns were about what led me to success. But somewhere along the line, I morphed into a fiction writer. Stories about my wonderful wife and kids and the tragic loss of a friend in Hurricane Sandy were all true, but they were also just me telling stories, a way for me to focus on things other than my personal weight and health accomplishments.
Now it’s time to get in gear. Now, instead of writing about what I’m planning on doing, I need to actually follow through.
When I am sitting down to write the New Year installment of this column, I need to be mentioning the two Weight Watchers meetings I’ve already attended in the last 10 days and how getting back on a plant-based diet is making me feel great.
It’s approaching 11 months that I began this journey, and unfortunately, somewhere along the way, I hit a U-turn. Now I’m back at my starting point instead of closer to my ultimate destination. As a result, it’s time to pack the bags, fuel up the car and get going again. Now I’ve got to take the same route but avoid the pot holes, detours and distractions.
Writing about what I have passed on the road is in my rear-view mirror. Setting and achieving goals, and focusing on my continued accomplishments is what I need to do to move toward reaching those goals.
I felt too good when I was getting healthy. I enjoyed my wife and children more and felt really great about myself.
It’s beyond time to recapture that feeling again, to do what I did to gain that feeling. And despite losing this second battle, I need to make sure that I win the war. So now I’m going to get out there and do my best. I’m making a promise to myself and everyone in my life that from now on, the Road to Healthy will be filled with stories of what I have done rather than always about what I am going to do.
Happy holidays and live life summer-inspired.
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