All Hope is Not Lost for Your Healthy Life

We are almost to the third month of the year.  Here in Wisconsin, this is the time of the year when we start itching for warmth and want to be freed from our homes where we have been hibernating for the last few months.  This is also the time of the year when our resolutions have either completely disappeared or fallen far to the back of our minds.  It can be frustrating.  We can start to feel hopeless.

For the past couple of weeks I have been exercising in front of my TV in the morning.  I have been watching news or talk shows while I march, stretch, lift weights and do my exercises that I ripped out of my WW magazine.  The TV is rarely on in my house. We have way too many activities to do to have time to turn on TV so I have found these programs incredibly interesting.  One thing that has interested me is the number of times I see commercials for weight loss programs and businesses that want to help us lose inches off of our bodies with simple procedures.  While I am lifting my weights and doing my funky exercise moves, I hear a commercial from someone who says, "Are you tired of exercising and watching what you eat only to have those muffins tops stay on your body?"  At first, I say, "Yes!!" because I am out of breath and tired of exercising but then I realize that I am getting results.  I will not give up hope.

Yes, I work my tail off five mornings a week to get and stay in shape but it is not without a reward.  I feel strong and fit.  Is my body perfect?   Far from it.  I still have parts of my body that I wish I could change and those commercials look very enticing but that's just not me.  I'm not about to go pay to have a procedure done on my body when I can work on it myself.  I know that I will never have the body that the models have but that needs to be okay.

Hope is not lost.  I need to stop being so hard on myself.  I'm allowed to eat some treats on the weekend. I'm even allowed to go a day without tracking from time to time.  It's okay.  Just because I don't look perfect or act perfect, doesn't mean that hope is lost.

The past 2 weeks have been "successful" weeks for me.  I am defining that success only by the numbers on the scale.  I have lost weight each of the last 2 weeks.  I still haven't lost all of the weight that I gained over the holidays but again, all hope is not lost.  If it takes me 2 more months to lose that weight, I know that I am a success because I have not given up.  I have still kept trying week after week.  There have been no perfect weeks but again that is okay.  I want to be as forgiving to myself as I am to my children and the world around me. I will not give up on them and I will not give up hope for me either.

We can so often be our hardest critics and lose hope in ourselves.  No matter what your successes or mistakes over the past day, week, month or year, all hope is not lost.  There is always the next minute, hour or day.  Remember to be hopeful and it will make a world of difference in your results.  You are an amazing person capable of amazing results.  You must believe and have hope that it is possible.

Have a great day,
Corinna

"So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal." -2 Corinthians 4:16-18