Thursday 30 August 2012

Juggling Two Dreams

Sunflower by Fyfe Photography
When I was morbidly obese, the only thing I dreamed about was losing the weight and getting myself healthy so that I could live long enough to see my children grow up. It took a long time for me to believe in myself enough to start working towards that dream, but eventually, I made it come true.


Then I started focusing on other dreams. One of those dreams is to be a published author. While I have had some short stories and some articels for magazines published, I haven't yet finished any of my novels to the point of having them ready for publication.


I am finding that trying to maintain one dream while striving for the other is not a simple matter. Writing is a process that keeps me sitting at my computer for long periods of time. Between that and shuffling my children to and from school, keeping tabs on them while they are home and general household maintenance (cooking and cleaning), fitting my usual two to three hours of exercise into my daily regime is increasingly difficult.


I have learned to try and fit my exercise in early in the morning, and, when that is not possible, right after my youngest children go to bed (7:00pm) which leaves me with some time to write later in the evening. I also get some of my exercise through walking and do a lot of walking while taking my children to and from school.


I am also finding that writing works better when I am not hungry. The temptation, when I am writing, is to snack on junk food. I have been fighting that temptation, and sometimes the temptation wins. I have learned that I need to eat something healthy (such as fruit) before sitting down to write and that I need to make sure to stop, even when my creativity feels like it's on a roll, to have regular, healthy, balanced meals at mealtimes.


Maintaining my weight loss sometimes feels like it is harder work than losing it was but it is worth the effort. I still have more energy than I had when I was overweight, and even my creative ideas seem to flow more easily now. Juggling two dreams isn't easy, but it's worth the effort.