“My goal has changed from wanting to lose weight, to wanting to be strong and fit. I feel like I reach that goal every time I workout, every time I plan my meals, every time I go for a walk instead of opting to not go for a walk. It is empowering and motivating and attainable… every day.”
I’m learning something:
Love the process, not the result.
I’m a slow learner, it takes me a while to process the world and myself and to believe that Jon Snow died, because he didn’t actually DIE, right? He’s coming back, right?
I know. I’m slow… like, a full Game of Thrones season behind and Winter is still coming and I just finished Season 5 and there is just no way he’s dead…
I also had a hard time adapting to word processors, bank machines, VCRs, DVD players, thumb drives and now, I can’t figure out Instagram to save my life. Slow learner.
But, on my fitness journey, what I am learning now is that I have been obsessing with the result, rather than the process, and therefore, the result has either eluded me, or come and gone in the space of one celebratory bag of chips and dill pickle dip. Followed by another. And another.
For the past few years, I have been fighting with my lumpy body over who is really in charge of the grocery list, and the pantry, and the liquor cabinet… me, or my tastebuds? Me, or my cravings? Me, or dill pickle dip? Guess who’s been winning?
I have been obsessing with the result… losing weight.
As I tried ramping up my exercise routines, cutting down my sugar, joining Weight Watchers, agonizing over every social event that required me to wear something other than tartan fleece pajama pants… all I was thinking about was the end result.
I’ll lose ten pounds and all will be right with the world.
I’ll get skinny and happiness will be mine.
I’ll look like those tiny women in the Old Navy ads and bliss will follow.
I’ll buy skinny jeans and be one of the cool people.
I never really embraced the process. I saw the diet, or the exercise, or the avoidance of bread as the means to an end… all sacrifices that would end once I got to where I wanted to be.
And… yeah, the sacrifices did end, and the result… went away. I gained back the weight, I gained back the lack of self-esteem, I gained back the inability to wear skinny jeans in public, because as soon as I reached the result I was hoping for… or even came within spitting distance of it… I gave up on the process and reverted to my old habits, my old routines, my old practice of eating my feelings, drinking my emotions and wallowing on the couch fantasizing about Jon Snow’s curly hair while inhaling half a bag of Sour Cream and Bacon potato chips.
Alright, so it was the full bag. Whatever.
Being a slow learner means that I have gone through this process several times over the last ten years or so. I’ve gained and lost the same ten pounds, ten times. It’s never been easy to lose it, yet I have consistently thrown caution to the winds once its gone and pretended like I earned a life-time guarantee on my abs and butt and those wobbly bits under my arms that says I can do whatever I want to my body after spending a few weeks working out. Like it will revert to what it was when I was sixteen, and stay there.
It doesn’t. It won’t. It laughs at me and chortles, “You’re not the boss of me!”
Here is what I have learned… the process is the goal.
Forget about the result… yeah, sure, you wanna lose ten pounds, whatever… but if all you think about is reaching that goal and quitting, then you’re doomed to gaining it back. If you see your fitness plan as temporary… “Gee, can’t wait til I can eat bacon and cream cheese again”… then you’re doomed to returning to whatever condition incited you to try to change in the first place. Fer realz.
Fitness is a journey, not a destination.
If I stopped exercising tomorrow, my body would begin the decline back to the debauchery from whence it has arisen! If I patted myself on the back for losing 20lbs and said “Yay! Done! Been there, done that, it’s over!” it wouldn’t be long before the wobbly bits on the backs of my arms would rear their ugly heads once again.
Are you on a fitness journey? Are you trying to lose weight, increase your fitness, improve your diet? It’s perfectly wonderful to have goals… but goals can come and go unless you make the Process the Goal. Make the process part of your life, and not just an uncomfortable visitor you’ve invited in to your home to watch G.O.T. until the season’s over and you can send him on his way and eat the chips and dip all by yourself again.
My goal has changed from wanting to lose weight, to wanting to be strong and fit. I feel like I reach that goal every time I workout, every time I plan my meals, every time I go for a walk instead of opting to not go for a walk. It is empowering and motivating and attainable… every day. Meeting your goals every day is so much more satisfying than straining for that distant desire of the elusive end result. I want to be fit… forever… and that means embracing, loving, and obsessing over the process. It’s the journey, not the destination!
On my fitness journey, embracing the process is the goal, and the results are the proof that it’s worth it.
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