Jennifer's BookstoreMonday, August 8, 2016Choices Beyond the Treadmill...In thelong run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never endsuntil we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.– Eleanor Roosevelt_______________________My life has takena dramatic turn, and it all began with a hinky treadmill.No worries and definitely no treadmill accidents – this is a positive turnof events.Let me elaborate by beginning with how I handled my Sioux City vacationthis year.For the first time ever while visitingfamily, I did not fall completelyback into bad eating habits.Yes, I did step off program slightly (mostly planned, sometimes not somuch), but never to the extent that my stomach hurt and felt bloated.
And I did not need one stinkin’ Zantac – a first for a “back home”
vacation.
For the first time ever, I
returned home from vacation with a significant weight loss, despite the fact
that I wasn’t always on track with mindful eating.
I can point to four possible reasons: I continued my exercise, I ate breakfast
and lunch completely on program, I found and attended Weight Watchers’
meetings, and I tracked, no matter what I ate at dinner.
It was humbling to write down those off-plan meals, but it was also
cathartic. In some cases, I found that I could even work the extra points in by
using weekly and exercise points (sometimes not).
I also made another major life change: I gave up caffeine – not really
diet-related, but I decided to see if I could make the switch to all decaf
coffee and beverages (a headache for one day).
So far, so good.
Most importantly:
No excuses about exercise.
Yes, Iowa summers are stinking rotten hot with about 1000% humidity
(okay, so I exaggerate), but there is a solution to every “I can’t do this because
it’s (fill in the blank).”
I had planned to use the treadmill in my family’s basement – not the best
option, but I thought it was doable.
However, when I tried it, it proved to be rickety, wobbly, and slippery.
I decided that a slippery belt was just too risky (having already
experienced a treadmill mishap five years ago, in which I cracked a vertebrae).
So it was a “no go.”
I could have said (and have said in the past), “Oh, well, I won’t worry
about exercise until I get home.”
It would have been so easy, and no one would have blamed me.
But using a slippery belt as an excuse to fall back into my old lazy ways
again would have been just another slippery slope argument. Not only that, I
would have lost much of my new physical strength, which I had developed over the
past two months.
Not an option.
Now there is nothing I hate more than hot sticky weather and getting up
early in the morning, combined with propelling my body forward.
Nothing.
Going for a morning walk in the dead of summer seemed like a preposterous
notion, a bwahahahahahahaha!
But I