40 Day and 40 Nights

 It's that time of the year again. Fat Tuesday happened, Ash Wednesday was yesterday and now people are giving things up for Lent. 

It was not initially apparent to me what I would give up. I toyed with Social Media or other means of improving myself. I am opting for two things this year. First, I am giving up drinking alcohol for lent. 

I will say, my willingness/want/need to drink alcohol has decreased significantly as of late. I am educating myself more on the effects of alcohol (although it does not affect me like others, Tiger's Blood over here, no hangovers, even at 40) and realizing how horrible it is for me and the progress/goals I have in life. I certainly have zero judgment on anyone that chooses otherwise but for me, I want to establish this 40 days to show that it may just be time to remove alcohol from my life for good. 

Aside from giving something up, I also wanted to work on something for self-improvement. I talked in my last blog post about the need to forgive myself, but I am also trying to let go of that person I was and not label myself as those things any longer. I thought about a gratitude journal. But let's be real, I barely have time to do what I do with my daily schedule so I didn't feel I could fit that in, and I wanted it to be realistic. So I am going to make a commitment to meditate. 

Anyone that knows me at
all know this is harder than giving up alcohol. I have always struggled to sit down/stay still for any period of time, especially as an adult (likely some form of undiagnosed ADHD) and so to me meditating has always seemed like a terrible thing. But I appreciate the benefits of calming your mind, just like I appreciate yoga. And while I still hate it, I do that anyway. So my goal is 10 minutes of meditation every day. Last night I did a sleep one. It was nice. We'll see how this goes. 

Finally, I have seen some memes and posts lately about "daily streaks" being stupid and setting you up for failure. I just want to say I wholeheartedly disagree with this. I love checking boxes, making things off my list to feel accomplished. I LOVE my streaks. And while I can see the negative impact for some, for me, when I am consistent, I see results. As an example, in the month of February, I was able to get in some form of activity in the Peloton app 26 out of 28 days in February. Does that mean I cried because I missed 2 days? No, I celebrated because I was able to move my body and get stronger, every damn day. Those days I missed? One I was doing CrossFit and another, I may have just have had other things going on. But did I beat myself up for missing 2 days? Absolutely not. I celebrated my progress. 

To date, I have worked out more in the past 2 months than I have in years. I considered going back to a gym today since my old gym is in the parking lot of my daughter's daycare. But right now, I have a great system that works for me. I have changed my eating and with meeting my activity goals, I have already lost 6lbs and am on my way to my goal weight, once again. 

My point? Streaks may be negative for some, but for others, it drives consistency and progress. Consistency is where the changes come from. Just stay consistent. 




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